


Nocturne

by sirbartonslady



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Gen, Shepherd Rose
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2018-08-27 07:46:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 49,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8393152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirbartonslady/pseuds/sirbartonslady
Summary: When a wild hellion called the Singing Phantom begins to attack and destroy farms all over Glenwood, Shepherd Rose and her seraphic partners must find and purify him before he causes widespread famine.





	1. Wind

**Author's Note:**

> None of this story is inspired by or in direct reference to the rather bizarre anime adaptation of the franchise. All of this fic was written specifically with game canon in mind, and has been adjusted over time to adhere to canon concepts introduced in Tales of Berseria. I repeat, this fic has absolutely nothing to do with Tales Of Zestiria The X, only with the games Tales of Zestiria and to a lesser extent Tales of Berseria. And yes, serious post-game spoilers as well as headcanons and such.

How did things come to be this way?

Shepherd Rose miserably tugged on her hood, wincing as a brief stream of rain came down in front of her face. Of course it would be a driving rain right now, and every tug of her hood brought a fresh stream of accumulated water down ultimately in front of her nose. And she didn't have Edna's umbrella to shield her from the worst of the rain because of course Edna was with her Squire, setting a trap.

“Mikleo,” she muttered under her breath to her water seraph, who was dormant inside of her. “I insist that you start carrying an umbrella too.”

 _'I've got a better suggestion_ ,' her water seraph retorted from within her. After years with her four seraphic partners, she was no longer weirded out when they spoke directly into her mind. ' _Instead of insisting I start using a weapon I'm wholly unsuited for, how about you learning to pack your own damned umbrella if there's a threat of rain!'_

Disembodied laughter rang in the back of her mind as her other seraphim responded to that.

_'Rose, if you're that miserable, I can put up an air shield around you_ ,' her wind seraph Zaveid offered. ' _Of course, because it's a seraphic arte, it'll be like a beacon, so the hellion will know we're here, but it's an option.'_

She scowled irritably; “Not actually an option and you know it. If that beast figures out we're here, it'll run again. I'm really sick of chasing this stupid thing. I want to catch it and end its rampage.” She tugged on her hood again in irritation. Rain was flooding down into her sleeve now each time she did that, so now her whole forearm was dripping wet, and that was in turn making her crankier. If it weren't for the nearby presence of Hyland royalty, she would be swearing in very colorful four letter words by now. She  _hated_ being cold and wet like this.

The hellion she was pursuing had led her on a merry little chase all over Glenwood. It was a powerful hellion, and it was dangerous, but after one skirmish with it in Glaivend Basin several months ago, the beast had been running away from her, almost as if taunting her. It left a great deal of collateral damage in its wake – especially to farms – wherever it went, though thankfully it never killed anyone. Of course, the fact that it was wrecking farmers' livelihoods was only slightly better than if it were outright killing people. The dire consequences of ruined farms could be disastrous if she didn't solve this problem soon.

Because Rose's seraphim suspected this thing was a hellionized seraph, there was the risk of it dragonizing if they left it unquelled too long anyway, but with as much of a nuisance as it was becoming, Rose really couldn't leave it alone. It was causing far too much trouble for the Shepherd to ignore, even if she were inclined to let any hellion continue to exist in the first place.

There was a curious thing about this hellion. Reports of this hoofed, quadrupedal terror were always accompanied with puzzling mentions of people having heard strange, disembodied singing, especially at dusk and after sunset. Edna had started calling it the Singing Phantom, and the nickname stuck.

She couldn't hear any singing right now, only the steady drumming of this accursed rain. Her hood was slipping back again, so she reached up again and tugged it down, wincing as a stream of water slipped down into her sleeve. Rain! Why did it have to be raining so hard right now?

“Rose,” a voice said softly nearby as another body came to be crouched beside her. The single syllable word was her only warning before he sidled in close enough to press against her. It was her Squire, Scout. He was dripping wet, and the press of his wet body against her cloak made her wrinkle her nose in disgust. She really did hate being cold and wet; she didn't understand how Scout wasn't bothered by all this.

Rose looked over him, and registered an absence, so she leaned down and put her mouth next to his ear: “Where's Edna? I need her umbrella before I catch my death of cold out here!”

“She's still setting the trap. She sent me to tell you that you're going to need the wind armatus if you hope to catch this thing, because she thinks it suspects we're here. She's setting a trap that will burden it with the earth element temporarily, so you need to use the wind armatus to overpower it.”

Rose throttled back an irritated retort; Scout was repeating what had been  _her_ idea in the first place, as if it was anyone else's but hers. In her current state of mind, she was barely able to keep from putting the boy in his place. She knew she shouldn't scold him, since it really wasn't his fault she was miserable.

Now it was time for a waiting game; they had to wait for the demon horse (or whatever it was) to move into the trap, before she could swoop in and catch it. So, with Scout at her side, ever vigilant, Rose felt herself losing focus for a moment in temporary reminiscence.

Scout (she could barely pronounce his original name, and he had chosen to abandon it anyway once he took on a new livelihood with her, so he had suggested the nickname of “Scout” since it was one thing he could really do well for her) had been her Squire for the past seventeen months. He was a little beyond boyhood, no more than fifteen years old, an orphan who had been alone on the streets for as long as he could remember, and had had the fortune (or misfortune, depending on someone's point of view) of encountering the Shepherd one day. It was a little unconventional, her Prime Lord Seraph, Lailah, had said, taking on a pickpocket street thief as a Squire, but Scout was pure of malevolence; he stole out of desperation to survive, not out of malevolent intent.

Zaveid had been the one to find the urchin trying to steal from Rose's belongings when they stopped at an inn in Marlind, and had detained him. Rose could still remember when her wind seraph frog-marched the angry, humiliated boy to confront her, and the boy had been screaming, amongst his obscenities, about how “Dirty gross old men like you should put on a shirt once in a while!”

She had calmly told him that she was a woman, wasn't old, and was indeed wearing a shirt. The grubby, dirt-covered boy had sneered at her, called her some rude things, and then said “I was talking about this fucker here, with the hair down to his ass.” Then, for good measure, he'd grabbed onto a lock of Zaveid's long hair, yanked hard enough on it to startle the seraph, and then kicked Zaveid's leg out from under him, unbalancing the seraph enough to force him to let go. The urchin would have made his escape if Mikleo hadn't tripped him up with his staff and sent the boy skidding into a wall.

The fact that the boy could not only sense the four seraphim present, but could see, hear and touch them as well, was a huge shock to all of them. It convinced Lailah on the spot that the boy had more than enough resonance to become a Shepherd if he so chose, if he ever found seraphic partners of his own, and if he had the dedication to become a Shepherd.

Zaveid had argued on the spot that a boy with such high resonance should be made into a Squire right away. He was strong enough to become a terrible hellion if he ever accumulated too much malevolence, and besides, he would be a great asset; he would take a great deal of the burden off of Rose by sharing it. Lailah had agreed that the boy should be taken in, because he had potential as a Shepherd and should be trained as such. Edna had shrugged and swatted the urchin with her folded up umbrella, saying only that she'd do as Rose wished. Only Mikleo had voiced opposition to the idea once it was fully discussed.

Scout had refused at first to become her Squire, but ultimately he was brought to see the light (it had helped that the laws of Marlind and Hyland were on Rose's side, and the boy would have been severely punished for attempting to desecrate Glenwood's own Shepherd. Rose had offered him a chance to escape any punishment for his attempted crime.) and accepted. The true name that Rose gave him (after asking Lailah for an appropriate one) translated from the ancient tongue into “Scout of the Honest Eyes.”

For all that he was a lifelong pickpocket, however, Scout had never killed anyone directly. Any time someone brought up how weird it was to have a criminal as a Squire, someone else had to bring up the reminder that Rose herself had been an assassin when Sorey made her his Squire, and even now as the Shepherd, Rose was not above killing morally-corrupted humans who would foster malevolence, if they could not be reformed.

Things weren't exactly hunky-dorey for a long time, of course; old habits die hard and Scout was reprimanded regularly for attempting to steal out of habit. But once he got used to his new companions and once he was certain that they would not abandon him, he changed drastically. In that last few months, he had begun to speak with hope that they would find some seraphim for him to contract with someday, so that someday he could become his own Shepherd, rather than inheriting from Rose.

Mikleo had been vehemently opposed to the boy becoming in any way associated with their retinue from the outset, and being as stubborn as he was, he had not backed down even after the Squire Pact was finalized. For more than a week he outright refused to give Scout his own true name so that Scout could learn to armatize with him. Rose had been sorely tempted to issue a direct order to her water seraph, but Lailah had convinced her to stand down, to stay out of the issue, and let Scout and Mikleo sort things out themselves. The two had done so on their own (Rose wasn't party to whatever went down to finally break the ice between them), with Mikleo grudgingly coming to respect Scout's abilities, and willingly giving his name at that point.

“Rose?” Scout murmured, breaking her out of her stroll down memory lane. “I think it's about time. I can see that thing starting to move toward the trap.” He was peering through the spyglass. “Also, are you sure it's a hellion? I don't see any waves of malevolence coming off of it.”

“It's not a normal horse, and not all hellions exude an aura.” Rose held her hand out for him to give her the spyglass, and he acquiesced. She sighted the target – a huge, ugly black horse – and watched it get closer to the narrow thicket opening where Edna was supposed to have laid her trap.

Rose collapsed the spyglass and stuffed it into her pack, then tugged her fallen hood back up. “All right,” she said softly. “Time to roll. You remember the plan, right, Scout?”

He nodded and moved back.

The plan was complicated. Once they judged the time to be right (without any signal from Edna, because if she moved openly, her presence would alert their target) then Rose would use Mikleo's Spectral Cloak (hopefully the rain wouldn't disturb that; Mikleo insisted that it wouldn't) to sneak as close as she could, and then when she was close enough, Scout would armatize with Lailah to announce his presence as a decoy, and the startled hellion would hopefully bolt through the trap. Then Rose would armatize with Zaveid, use the armatus' speed boost to pounce on the trapped hellion and hit it with a Sylphystia.

Complicated, yes, but it seemed to be the only way they were going to manage to quell it now, with a major farm in sight. If they failed, it would likely ruin that farm and possibly more before they could find it again.

“Are you ready, Mikleo?” She asked under her breath.

_'More ready than you are, I think,'_ the seraph responded. Then he activated his Spectral Cloak (or, as Edna sometimes called it, “Meebo's hidey bubble”) which enabled them to move in stealth around most hellions. It was a powerful but short-lasting technique.

Creeping along the ground, with the thin veil of water artes masking her as best it could, she edged nervously around, stopping whenever the horse creature flicked its ugly ears in her direction. The rain was not letting up, and she was doing her best to avoid puddles, but it was getting difficult.

Then, finally, she put her hand down and made a gesture in the nearby puddle. This was to be the signal... she hoped Scout was watching.

She felt the sudden surge of energy behind her as Scout and Lailah armatized. The horse creature in front of her threw its head up, and to her dismay, it looked straight at  _her_ , not at the armatus behind her.

_Well, it's now or never!_ “Filk Zadeya!” She hissed the name through her teeth, and from within her, the wind seraph responded. There was a strong burst of energy up to surround and cloak her, and she felt her body become light and easy to move. She would never openly admit it, but the wind armatus was her favorite. She loved all four of her seraphic partners equally, with absolutely no preference of one over another... but in terms of the armatizations themselves, she definitely preferred the wind one over the others. It made her body feel light and fast, and sometimes she felt almost as if she could fly. Gathering the combined power beneath her feet, she catapulted forward.

In response to her, the hellion faced her squarely, flared its power around itself like a leonine mane and reared up.

_'Rose, it's not taking the bait, I don't think--'_ Zaveid's words were cut off when the creature roared furiously and charged forward at them. Rose quickly sidestepped (thanking the wind armatus for giving her access to instant speed for that kind of thing) and tried to draw the hellion around into charging through the trap. Scout and Lailah came up from the rear to give them some aid, and the two of them tried to drive the hellion into the trap again.

Roaring, it lunged between them, shrugging off their attacks, and they had to both sidestep quickly to come around and block it from charging through past where they had been hiding. There were allies back there that they had to keep it away from. In desperation to keep it occupied, Rose threw herself at the hellion and brought both hands out with wind blades on them, trying to either attack it or to change its trajectory. Why was it fighting now and not running like it had been?

Scout circled around and tried again to drive the beast toward the trap, but by now it was clear the hellion knew about the trap. It was decidedly avoiding the most obvious exit. Well, if it wasn't going to leave in the direction that they had given it space, because of the trap, then as long as they kept it from charging behind them where a small retinue of Hyland knights was stationed, then they could fight it and quell it.

Pausing to gauge her distance, Rose did some quick calculations in her head. If she could get enough speed, she could distract the demon horse and then maybe Scout and Lailah could get the purification in. She wasn't picky about which of them got the final blow against a hellion (Scout kept wanting to keep a running tally, because he was competitive, but she refused to play along), so long as the rampage stopped.

“Need your help here, Zaveid,” she murmured, shaking rain out of her hair. “Think we can pin it in place?”

_'We can try. I can't use pendulums when we're armatized though. Want to separate?'_

“No, you just direct my arms and I'll try to ca...”

And that's when everything went wrong. The hellion swirled by, catching her by surprise because she had been focusing on gathering up some power to weave an air net with which to slow it down, so she didn't realize it was so close. Then, when it was at point-blank range, it suddenly screamed, launched itself up into the air, and kicked out with its back hooves. She had no time to even react, let alone sidestep the kick.

The next several moments of Rose's life were engulfed in pain and separation as the armatus shattered; she couldn't maintain it when she was in so much pain. Her entire torso blazed with hot agony and the air in her lungs was driven out forcefully. She felt like she was suspended in the air for an absurdly long time, and then she felt the wet squelching impact as she landed in a mucky puddle of mud and skidded to a stop. She had no idea where Zaveid, forcibly torn from her, was thrown.

The hellion screamed again – and was gone, as if it had abruptly vanished. Rose fought to remain conscious while pain enveloped her, and she heard Scout's voice shout defiantly: “We can't let it get away! Come on, Zaveid, I need your help!  _Filk Zadeya_ !”

_No, Scout... he's got to be..._ Her vision ran black in that instant and her consciousness failed her.

 

* * *

 

When she next opened her eyes, her vision swam in and out of focus. Overhead, she heard voices and saw a few faces bending over her in concern.  _How long was I out? And what happened to Zaveid? He took the worst of that!_

“She seems to be coming around.” That voice was familiar. “Darling, please go fetch me the medical kit. I'm not sure what I can do, but she's got to be in pain.”

As the faces over her resolved themselves into something vaguely recognizable, Rose gasped for breath; her chest felt unbelievably heavy. It was hard to breathe at all.

“Easy, Rose,” Mikleo said calmly as he put a cool hand to her forehead. “You took a really bad hit to the torso. A couple of your ribs are cracked and your lungs are damaged. I'm doing my best, but you're in rough shape. Please don't move.”

“Za....veid... Scout?” She could barely get the words out. It was so hard to breathe.

He tapped her lips gently as if to tell her to be silent; “Please don't move or talk; I'm trying to heal you. As for Scout and Zaveid, they took off after the hellion. Edna and Lailah went to fetch them back or give them support. You, my friend, are in no shape to move yet.”

She wanted to ask more, such as how long she'd been out, and if there were any other injuries, but she couldn't really spare the air in her lungs to talk... it hurt too much to breathe as it was.

“Rose, are you coherent yet?” The familiar voice asked as the face hovering over her resolved itself into her old friend and one-time Squire, Alisha Diphda, the knight princess of Hyland. “We saw you go flying and land awkwardly. I think you must have been knocked out. How badly hurt are you?”

Mikleo sighed and grasped Rose's arm; “Rose, take Alisha's hand so I can talk to her.”

Rose, still struggling to breathe, flailed slightly as she reached for Alisha; “Hand...” The princess looked at her in confusion but did as asked, placing her hand into Rose's.

“Alisha, it's Mikleo, Rose's water seraph.” Mikleo spoke clearly and slowly enough.

“Seraph Mikleo! What's going on?”

“As you can see, Rose is injured, but I'm doing what I can to heal her. Alisha, I need your help. We need to go after Scout because he will need our help, but Rose is in no condition to walk. Can you get us a horse?”

“A horse? If Rose is too injured to walk, she's too injured to ride a horse! Please, we'll get her loaded into a wagon and taken back to the infirmary, where my healers can treat her properly.”

“Must help Scout...” Rose wheezed. _I have to get there and make sure Zaveid is all right._ There was a terrifying sense of deja vu at the moment, a cold knot of memory in her gut. Another disastrous injury during wind armatus... and the fallout from that... _I can't lose another wind seraph!_

“Alisha,” Mikleo said calmly, “we don't have time for that. We were fighting a dangerous hellion. We need a horse. She can't walk, but I can help keep her on a horse.”

“Seraph Mikleo, tell me how bad her injuries are. Sergei went to get some supplies so I can treat her; just tell me what's wrong.”

Mikleo sighed; “She has some rib fractures and some lung bruising that is making it hard for her to breathe. I'm sorry, Alisha, but you won't have anything in your kits to help her right now. And we can't wait around; Scout is chasing a dangerous hellion that ruins farmland and can hurt people. He could need our help badly at any moment. We  _have_ to go to him.”

Rose heard boots squelching in the mud as someone else approached and knelt down. “I brought you the satchel, Alisha. How is our Dame Shepherd?” The new arrival was Sergei Strelka, a former officer of the Rolancean army, now an ambassador to Hyland. He was also Alisha's husband.

“Her seraph spoke to me and told me that she's got some broken ribs and lung trauma. They want a horse because their Squire took off after the hellion and they need to go after him. Even in her condition, she's insisting on going right away.”

A moment of silence, and then Sergei sighed; “If you wish it, Madame Shepherd, we will see it done, but please let us escort you. Let me ride with you, to make sure you don't fall off.”

“No,” Rose said vehemently. _Too dangerous_.

Mikleo let out a noise of frustration; “Alisha, I can take care of this, I just can't carry her with any sort of speed, that's why we need a horse. You humans need to stay here and stay out of the way; that hellion could hurt you. You  _can't see it_ coming!”

After briefly consulting with his wife, Sergei stood up; “I'll go get your horse, Alisha. I think he's steadier for Shepherd Rose to ride in her current condition. You and I can double up on mine.”

Mikleo muttered an obscenity under his breath that Rose would have found amusing (or even hilarious) coming out of his mouth if she weren't in so much pain and panic right now. As it was, she was reduced to focusing on trying to breathe around the acute pain, and trying to not freak out.

_Why would Zaveid armatize with Scout if he was badly hurt? He can't be that badly hurt after all. But he always takes most of the damage when we're in a fight. Is he hurt or not? He shouldn't have armatized if he was in as bad of shape as I am, but..._

She couldn't recall any of her seraphim  _refusing_ to armatize before due to injury, but she had never called upon any of them to armatize while injured either. In the years that they had all been fighting hellions together, whenever any of them got hurt in a fight, they tagged out with each other so that the injured one could rest inside the vessel until the danger was past and treatment could be meted out.

Then she heard the telltale sound of hoofbeats and a horse's snorting, and looked up to see Sergei approaching leading a pair of saddled horses.

“Help me up, Mikleo.” It was the only set of words she could get out.

Grumbling, Mikleo obeyed and shouldered her arm, giving her firm support and a boost upright. Then, as her head swam with pain and lack of proper breath, she looked at the horse being offered to her. Sergei was frowning intensely even as he held out the reins to her.

“Madame Shepherd, we are riding with you. I don't care what you order. We saw you get thrown across this clearing and you're clearly injured on our property; we won't let you throw yourself into danger without us to escort you.”

“Alisha, make your husband stand down!” Mikleo raised his voice in desperation. There was a risk that the princess wouldn't hear his voice now that they weren't touching; Alisha's own resonance was tricky nowadays. “You can't come with us! It's too dangerous!”

In response, the princess, who was still crouched on the ground, going through the medical satchel, looked up at the seraph and frowned; “I will do no such thing. He has a very valid point. Shepherd Rose was just injured on our property and is refusing to wait for our healer to come and put her back to rights. If you won't wait for proper help, then you  _will_ allow us to at least escort you and see to it that no further harm come to you. You can't order us around on our own estate, not even if you claim it's for our own good. There are protocols that we must follow because of who and what she is.”

Mikleo glared at her angrily, but acquiesced because he had no choice.

At Sergei's command, the horse knelt before Rose, allowing her to mount without climbing up (and expending precious breath lifting herself up). As she got situated in the saddle, Mikleo  _very_ quietly muttered under his breath, cursing the Lord and Lady for being so stubborn (and calling them both a number of unflattering things in his desperate frustration) and then he climbed up onto the horse himself just before it was given the command to stand up.

The world dropped away from below, and Rose laced fingers of both hands in the reins (the mane was, aggravatingly enough, braided in such a way that she couldn't grip it properly) to keep her balance. Mikleo bunched in close to her and wrapped his arms around her, keeping his hands on her torso, fingers pressed against the bottom of her ribcage. “I'm going to keep healing you while we ride. You'd better not start getting faint on me, Rose.” He was  _scolding_ her now. She wanted to laugh, but lacked the breath and energy to do so.

She somehow kicked the horse into a gallop and headed blindly in the direction that Mikleo said the others had gone in. Now she had to trust in her bond with her seraphim to draw her to them.

Alisha and Sergei caught up to them almost immediately and kept their horse (which was taller than the horse she and Mikleo were on... the couple were riding Sergei's war charger, after all) very close. After a few false turns, Rose surrendered control of her horse to the couple riding beside her and just told them which direction she sensed they should go in.

As they rode, very slowly her breathing got easier. It seemed that Mikleo's healing artes were starting to work on her. The damage to her lungs seemed to be easing so that they inflated properly now; breathing still hurt but it wasn't as much of a fight for each breath.. Her ribs still hurt with each stride of the horse, but her concern for her squire and seraphim overrode any desire to stop and rest her aching body.

It felt like it took forever to cross the farm field, before she heard Mikleo's swift intake of breath, and he pointed. “I see them!”

Rose mirrored his gesture so that Alisha and Sergei saw the direction, and they altered trajectory. Sergei was steering the charger, while Alisha looked around them all in utmost horror. The farmland they were traveling over was trashed; the crops were trampled and ruined, and there was an aura of desecration. The hellion had indeed despoiled this place.

Amid a burnt-out patch of ground, Scout was crouching with the three seraphim. To Rose's intense relief, Zaveid was there, slumped against Scout, and clearly still alive and awake, but her relief was short lived when she saw his condition as they got close. He was battered, bruised and bloodied. She had no recollection of ever seeing a seraph in such a battered state. Scout was also injured, it seemed, though his injuries appeared to be minor in comparison; he had bandages on him and one arm was in a makeshift sling. Edna and Lailah appeared to both be using their own healing artes on the downed wind seraph.

As the horses drew close, Zaveid raised an arm weakly to greet them; “Excellent timing, Rose. I was just wondering how you were. Unfortunately, the bastard hellion got away yet again. Ouch, ouch,  _ouch!_ Go easy on me, Edna!”

Rose nearly fell out of the saddle (she was never quite sure how it was that Mikleo managed to dismount the horse, catch her as she fell off the horse, and steady her on her feet, before escorting her to the group on the ground) and somehow managed to make it to her wind seraph's side. “Zaveid, how badly hurt are you?”

“Bad enough that I don't want to do that ever again. But I'll be fine soon enough. Don't worry that beautiful head of yours about me, Rose.” He smiled at her despite obvious excruciating pain. Then he turned his eyes to the other seraph there. “Ahh, Mikky-boy, are you going to tend my wounds too?”

“I suppose I must.” Mikleo heaved a long-suffering sigh. And then he smiled faintly; “Wouldn't do for you to cark now, would it, old man?”

“C'mon now, I'm not on the brink of death! I'm just, ugh, in a lot of pain.”

Mikleo looked over at Rose and his expression grew serious; “Rose, will you be all right without my help for now? I can't heal both of you at the same time.”

“Yes, I can manage. Help Zaveid.”

Edna and Lailah shuffled aside to let Mikleo take over healing the wind seraph. Then they both looked at Rose, and Lailah was about to speak when they all heard a soft gasping sound and looked up to see Scout scrubbing his eyes with a grubby hand. He was sobbing bitterly.

Lailah reached over to brush some muddied hair off of his forehead in a tender maternal gesture; “Are you still in pain, Scout?”

“It's my fault he got hurt,” the boy said miserably, gulping for air around angry sobs. “I'm sorry, Rose! I just wanted to stop that stupid thing, and I almost got your wind seraph killed!”

“Hey now,” Zaveid said with a groan, “I just told you all that I'm not dying. I'm just in a lot of pain.”

Alisha approached carrying the medical satchel; “Can I help in any way? I'm not a healer like your seraphim, but I can patch you up better than you are right now.”

Edna looked up at the princess with a critical eye; “Rose, can she even see us? I can never figure out when her resonance is strong enough to see and hear us.”

Alisha seemed to not react to her words, and Rose didn't feel like answering either; Edna was no idiot and would figure things out herself. Instead, while Alisha tended to Scout's injuries, she prodded experimentally at her own injuries, and almost cried out when she encountered a really nasty bruise that made her head spin with pain when she touched it.

“You should let us take you back to our infirmary, Shepherd Rose,” a deep voice said from nearby, and she winced, turning to look at Sergei. “We are held liable for your injuries, you know. You were injured on our property. Let us take care of your recovery as well. It is the least we can do for you.”

“I suppose I'll have to. I hate to impose, but even with Mikleo's healing artes, I'm going to need a few days to get back to normal. Bone fractures take a few days even with his best healing. And right now, I think Zaveid needs Mikleo's attention more than I do.”

He smiled at her, clearly relieved; “It is no imposition whatsoever. If you will permit me to speak off the record, you are a dear friend. It is an honor to have you grace our homestead.”

She chuckled softly; “I don't know what you mean about speaking off the record, Sergei; you and Alisha are dear friends of mine, and I always look forward to seeing you both.”

It was no lie or exaggeration; the Lord and Lady of the Diphda estate in Hyland were both long-time friends of Rose, as well as her predecessor Shepherd Sorey. (And there was also a fun, awkward history involved there too. When she first met Captain Sergei Strelka in Lastonbell years ago, as Shepherd Sorey's Squire, they had to pretend to be married in order to get past him. He was so convinced that they never had the courage to tell him it was a lie. And for about a year after she became the Shepherd after Sorey went into suspension – in fact, during his courtship of Alisha – Sergei had presumed Rose to be Sorey's widow and had treated her as such. It ultimately ended up being Alisha, of all people, who broke the news to him that Sorey and Rose had never been married, never even been lovers.)

Rose waited and watched in concern as Mikleo worked on Zaveid, though it was clear very soon that Zaveid would indeed be all right with time. He was already starting to make stupid jokes. By the time Scout was on his feet, bandaged and cleaned up a little bit by Alisha, the two female seraphim had retreated to rest inside their vessel, and Mikleo was sitting back on his heels, looking at the wind seraph in front of him.

“I can't do anything more for you now, Zaveid. I have no energy left. I feel like I could sleep for a week.”

The wind seraph chuckled softly as he gathered his feet under himself, put a hand on Mikleo's shoulder to brace himself, and stood up shakily. Rose retrieved his fallen hat and handed it to him, and he grinned at her before settling it on his head; “I'm lucky to have friends like all of you. Beats all hell out of being alone and nursing wounds on your own. Rose, by your leave, I'm going to retreat inside.”

Rose returned his smile, grateful to see him back to his old self, and held her arms out; “Come, boys. Mama Rose will make it all better.”

Zaveid laughed heartily at that before dissolving into a shard of light and retreating into his Shepherd. Mikleo just gave her the most long-suffering look; “Mama Rose?  _Really_ , Rose?”

She just grinned at him and kept her arms out. “You all come out of me, don't you? Doesn't that make me like a mother to you?”

“I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who isn't hundreds and hundreds of years older than you,” he said tartly, and then he dissolved into the bead of light and returned to her.

_'I feel better already,'_ Zaveid said, his voice purposefully suggestive. Rose would have pummeled him if he was manifest, but since he was dormant within her, and she was still in pain, she let it slide.


	2. Earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Convalescing from their catastrophic failed fight against the Singing Phantom, Rose and her team spend time with Alisha and her family

Rose awoke feeling somewhat disoriented. The room she was in was clearly not an inn room. It was painted in warm soft tones and there was the faintest scent of peppermint and vanilla in the air. She tried to sit up, and her body wouldn't let her. Her entire torso felt like it was strapped down. It was difficult to breathe too. She looked down to see if she was restrained. There was no sign of any restraints, but she saw bandages across her upper torso.

She took a moment to try and get her brain working. Yes, she was in the Diphda estate manse, she was sure of that. She remembered riding back with Sergei and Alisha. (To her embarrassment, she'd been strong-armed into riding with Sergei. In fact, she had ridden back cradled in his arms because that was how he insisted on doing it, and Zaveid had quietly heckled her in the back of her mind the  _entire way_ . To make matters worse, Sergei had carried her from his horse all the way inside and to this room.) She was in the infirmary portion of the estate, no less. That was where she and Scout had been put to convalesce. Something about duty to see to their recovery because they'd been injured on Alisha's family property...

“Ahh, Milady Shepherd! Are you awake? How do you feel?” A robed nurse appeared at her bedside.

“I'm really sore...”

“I shouldn't wonder. You broke some ribs in that fight, Milady. We've bound you up nice and firmly so that they'll heal quickly. I'm told by Lady Alisha that one of your seraphim helped you heal up a bit too.”

“He did, yes. He did a fantastic job too. I was in a lot of pain before he got his hands on me.”

_'Yes, good,'_ Mikleo said sleepily in the back of her mind,  _'keep praising me. Edna, are you listening?'_

She hid a smile with some effort. Mikleo had changed in the years since she became the Shepherd; he was much more self confident. It was nice to see him asserting himself once in a while.

The nurse put hands on her and changed her badges gently, then brought her some water to drink and let her lay back down to rest. Then she fell back asleep, and when she woke again, she saw a face hovering over her. The way the dark hair spiked randomly and the poor lighting, combined with a deep, almost unreachable dream that she felt like she'd been having, and there was a name in the back of her throat. But she didn't utter it because she'd sworn to never say his name unbidden like that. Still, she couldn't help but be transported back half a dozen years to her time as a Squire...

“Are you awake yet, Rose?” Scout's young voice lanced through the fog of pain and awakening.

“Against my better judgment, yes.”

“She's dreaming about strong, manly arms,” a slick voice said indolently, and instantly she wanted to hit something. She _hated_ it when Zaveid used that voice. “You know she is.”

“I am not,” she muttered. “I was dreaming about Glaivend Basin and all the crap we've had to deal with there.” (Technically not true but it made for a good comeback.)

“I'm pretty sure you were thinking about a certain strong, manly gentleman, his sculpted chest and muscular arms. My word, Rose! I had no idea you were that kind of woman!” He was relishing this.

“What kind of woman?”

"And a married man!" The seraph grinned at her. "To think that's all it takes to win your heart! You've been around me all these years and not batted an eyelash at me. You take one ride with Sir Sergei and you're all over yourself in love. Is that really all it takes, a wedding vow?"

"Zaveid," Rose said coldly, giving him the sternest, angriest glare she could muster, "if you say one more word on the topic, I will grab you somewhere tender and yank with all my strength, and we will see if male seraphim are all talk and no equipment. Do I make myself absolutely clear?"

He laughed indulgently; “All right, fair enough. For the record, we're 'equipped' exactly as human men are. Just as female seraphim are anatomically just like a human woman. The differences are so subtle as to be not important. However, if you  _insist_ , dear Shepherd, I'll leave well enough alone. But seriously, you shouldn't lust after another woman's husband.”

She clenched her fist in threat, and he jumped back, laughing. Scout and Mikleo both looked uncomfortable (Scout even briefly crossed his legs, she noted) and Lailah had the presence of mind to look utterly scandalized. “Rose! You shouldn't be touching your seraphim like that! You shouldn't even threaten to do so!”

“I warned him! And you _know_ he deserves it!” She continued to glare at Zaveid, who looked entirely too whole and healed for her tastes. It felt like just hours ago she was worrying about whether or not he'd survive. Now he was almost completely healed, with only a few pink scars where he'd endured some slashing wounds. _I almost hate myself for worrying about him, the smug bastard. I should've known better than to compare him to Dezel. Zaveid_ is _a survivor, after all._

His grin slowly grew into something entirely too smarmy for her liking; “It's nice to be ogled. The female gaze is so pleasant.”

“I'm _not_ ogling you, you ugly peacock. I'm just thinking how damned unfair it is that you're all healed up and I'm still broken and bruised. You were supposed to take the worst of that hit, you know!”

“I _did_ take the worst of that kick.” He smirked a bit. “Are you accusing me of dropping my guard and failing you, honey? I promise, I'm better than that. The impact of that kick knocked me out for a few seconds. I'm sturdy, but that thing hit really, really hard. Rose, if you had taken that kick yourself, unprotected, I don't think you'd be here. That monster kicks hard enough to shatter _rock_. If you had been kicked full force by it, it would have caved your chest in and burst your internal organs. You didn't see it, because it happened too fast, but we didn't get hit by the full force of its hooves. Therein lies the difference.”

“Zaveid is right; you weren't hit by the full force of that hellion,” Lailah said gravely. “We should be glad that you weren't even more badly hurt than you were; that was actually really dicey.” Then she brightened up. “All the same, we got to see first hand just how much better Mikleo's healing artes have gotten. I guess those months we spent in Marlind have really paid off.”

A couple of years ago, Mikleo discovered a seraphic healer who had taken up residence Marlind (as it turned out, he was teaching seraphic healing to Rohan, Marlind's Lord of the Land) as they were passing through, and he insisted on them all staying for several months while he underwent intense training. His healing artes expanded dramatically as a result of that training. He was able to heal all sorts of injuries, with remarkably little cost to himself or his patient; in general, the thing a patient ended up needing the most after a healing session with him was water and sleep. (Patients tended to become dehydrated because he used their own bodily hydration to trigger the healing.) He practiced his healing artes as often as he could, but this was the first time they had really had a serious enough injury to anyone that his increased skill with healing was noteworthy. In a way, Rose and Zaveid's injuries from that hellion were almost a showcase for how good a healer Mikleo had become.

The water seraph, presently drowsing against one of the posts on the bed that Scout was sitting on, roused groggily at Lailah's words. “I've still got a long way to go to be as good as Asclepius, but it's nice to see that it's working.”

Scout shifted on the bed and looked up at the clock on the wall; “I'm really hungry, Rose. Whenever you're able to get up, I'd like to find something to eat.” His voice was especially petulant, and Rose suppressed a chuckle.

“I know Alisha won't want us to starve, so I'm sure we'll be able to get something to eat soon enough. It's too soon for me to try and get up... these bandages are a little too tight for me to comfortably move around in. Why don't you ask the nurse if you can get something to eat?”

“I did. She told me to wait. Said I couldn't handle food yet.” He pouted.

“What sort of injury did you sustain? I saw your arm in a sling before but it's not now.”

“I, uh, did something to my shoulder. Hurt it pretty good.”

“Dislocated his shoulder,” Mikleo said. “And Scout, the phrasing is, you hurt it quite badly.”

“Yes, Teacher.” The young Squire snapped bitterly. He hated having his grammar (which was rough around the edges due to no true formal education; he was still learning how to read) corrected.

A nurse came in just then, and after some gentle scolding of the two humans in her care, she set them both firmly back in their beds and gave each of them an herbal concoction to drink. The concoction was so bitter and foul that Scout put up a brief fight until Edna smacked him hard on the noggin with her umbrella and told him to grow up.

Then, after the nurse left, Rose settled down and despite the gross taste in her mouth, drifted back to sleep. The herbs must have helped, but it might well have been simply that she still needed sleep in order to recover from the healing she'd received from Mikleo.

Some time later, she surfaced again from sleep, to find Mikleo leaning over her, his hands on her torso.

“Better not be groping me, little one,” she murmured sleepily, and was rewarded with a sharp blush on his cheekbones.

“I'm _healing_ you, damn it, Rose! Maybe you'd rather I left you alone and it took you months to heal these ribs?”

“Wait, groping you is an option?” Zaveid feigned eagerness (at least she hoped he was feigning it!) and she glared at him briefly before laughing softly.

“Not if you value your anatomy,” she retorted. “I told you before.”

“Yeah,” he drawled, “and you called me an ugly peacock before.” With that smarmy grin on his face, she knew he was taking it all in stride. It was pretty hard to ruffle Zaveid's feathers. “How do you feel, anyway, sweetie?”

“Don't call me that,” she said automatically, and stretched carefully. Her torso no longer ached acutely; the pain was now tolerable and she could breathe easily. “I feel almost as good as new! Mikleo, you're amazing.”

The youngest seraph flushed a little bit and crossed his arms; “Thank you, but I wish you wouldn't call me 'little one' like you did. If you're going to call anyone 'little one' it should be the actual child among us!”

“Which is you, Meebo,” Edna murmured, poking him with her umbrella.

“I was going to say Scout,” Mikleo retorted.

Rose stifled another chuckle and looked around the room. She was just about to say that she was pretty certain there was someone who would resent that remark. But then she realized that she was the only human in the room. “Where is my young squire anyway?”

“Off getting something to settle his stomach, I believe. He convinced the nurse to let him get something to eat. I told him to bring something back for you, but there's no guarantee he'll do that – he may eat it himself before he gets back with it.”

She frowned; “Is he by himself?” She was concerned about him being tempted to return to his roots. He had been very good lately with turning over a new leaf and not pickpocketing, but this was a fancy estate mansion and it would be easy for him to be tempted to pilfer something.

Mikleo shook his head; “ Lailah went with him.”

“Oh, good. Why Lailah?” It seemed a bit odd; Lailah usually stuck close to Rose, because as Prime Lord, it was her duty to monitor her Shepherd, and she trusted her Sub Lords to take care of the Squire. Also, because she said sometimes that she needed to guard Rose's “purity” around “certain hedonistic seraphim” (meaning Zaveid) though Rose wasn't sure why; Zaveid was all talk when it came to being a perv. He had never, ever even once actually made a move that was unwelcome. Rose suspected that it was mostly Lailah being overprotective and trying to remind the team periodically that she was the Prime Lord. A bunch of silly, needless posturing, probably brought on by the fact that the five of them (Shepherd and seraphim) had been a seamless team for half a dozen years now and thus their dynamic was so enmeshed that sometimes boundaries were blurred.

“She wanted a chance to look around,” Zaveid said. “You know how Lailah is about this place, right? She says this estate is a good place for a fire seraph. She really likes it here.”

Edna twirled her folded umbrella idly; “Also, she can sort of control him thanks to the squire pact.” She left unsaid that Lailah would never actually  _do_ something like that without Rose's consent, but that Scout didn't know that. Scout still seemed to think that Lailah was the one in charge overall.

Rose swung herself around and her bare feet brushed the floor. She noted that her hair felt greasy and grimy, and she felt like she hadn't bathed in a week. She ran her hands over her torso, flinching at the tenderness in her rib area, but there was no stabbing pain now. She felt ever so much better.

“Gross perv alert,” Edna said coldly, opening her umbrella and swinging it in front of Rose. “Zaveid, you're so predictable.”

“I was just appreciating our darling Shepherd. She's glorious to look at. And she's not naked or anything, so I'm not being that much of a pervert, you know.” He grinned. “I can hardly resist looking at such a pretty young lady in such an unguarded state. There's such a glorious natural charm!”

Mikleo came over, holding a folded stack of clothes, which proved to be Rose's favorite outfit, crisply laundered and folded neatly. “I can fill the copper basin in the bathroom full of water and once Lailah gets back, she can heat it up for you so you can bathe. Then you should be ready to go.”

“Could one of you maybe go get her? I'm really feeling how long it's been since I've bathed. And I was covered in mud last I remember, before getting here.”

“On it!” Zaveid said cheerfully, and exited the room in a flourish. Then Mikleo disappeared into the adjacent bathroom to fill the aforementioned copper basin, leaving Rose alone with her earth seraph.

“Thank you, Edna, but you don't need to protect me from Zaveid, for what it's worth.”

“Oh, I know that,” Edna said with a thin smile. “But he needs to be put in his place regularly or he gets a big, inflated head. You use him too much in battle, and he starts thinking he's all that and a bag of curry buns.”

She chuckled and toyed with the coverlet on her bed; “He keeps things lively, doesn't he? Don't you worry, I have no problem putting him in his place. I know he won't ever do anything I don't want him to do, so while I appreciate your help, I can take care of myself with him.”

Edna made a quiet sniffing sound of mild disdain even as she conceded the point; “Fine.  Meebo needs to be kept in check too, you know. He gets his ego up too high and then when it gets popped, he becomes very, very depressed.”

“I know, I know. But let him have his kudos for now; he's earned them this week!”

The two of them waited, and by and by, Lailah and Scout returned. Scout was carrying a small pile of little hot, freshly baked meat pastries. He offered some to Rose, and she took two of them. Then, after Lailah finished heating up the water in the bathroom for her, she went and took a bath.

 

* * *

 

Once the two of them had bathed and changed into fresh clothes (and Scout received a very gentle scolding for running around the mansion in his infirmary gown like that), they thanked the nurses for the help and exited the infirmary. Then, following Lailah's urging, they went in search of Alisha or Sergei.

They found both of them in a single room, a room that Rose quickly realized was a baby nursery. The room was decorated in soft colors and soft fabrics; there was a large wooden crib in one corner, and an occupied rocking chair, plus a pile of wooden toys in the middle of the floor, being played with by a toddler boy and his father.

“Rose!” Alisha, ensconced in the rocking chair with a bundle in her arms, perked up at the sight of Rose in the doorway. “It's so good to see you up on your feet again! How do you feel?”

“Much better, thank you. I'm really sorry we weren't able to stop that hellion from spoiling your farm. We'll get it soon, and if it's an earth seraph, we can get it to fix what it did wrong. If it's not an earth seraph, we'll have to look for one to come by and give its blessing to fix your farm up.”

“Fortunately,” Sergei said from where he was sitting on the floor, in the middle of the room, looking up at her with that unflappable, serene expression of his, “that field has already yielded harvest for the year, so we will not be immediately impacted. But it will be a heavy blow next year if we can't get it fixed.”

Scout sidled in beside her; “We'll get the hellion next time. I  _almost_ had it last time, until that stupid fire hellion showed up and attacked us.”

Rose blinked and looked down at him; “Wait, there was another hellion? Did it get away too?”

“Yeah, it did. I _told_ you about it, Rose. You must've been in more pain than I thought and didn't hear me when I told you about it. When I caught up to the Singing Phantom, I almost had it cornered, and then suddenly this flying firebird hellion comes swooping out of nowhere and attacks both of us. I think it was actually trying to attack the Phantom, and was pushing me out of the way.”

“So why weren't you able to purify at least one of them?”

“Zaveid's worthless against fire artes, you know,” Scout said tartly, and the wind seraph huffed in indignation. Then the Squire continued; “The firebird chased the hellhorse across the field after they both smacked the crap out of us. What was I supposed to do? Zaveid was barely conscious and I was in pain. We were too beat up to give chase.”

“How badly hurt were your seraphim in that scrabble?” Sergei inquired, completely heedless of the fact that he was still holding a wooden toy block for the toddler boy he was playing with. It was a surreal situation for him to be asking such a heavy question, really. Still, it was a nice sentiment, that he was inquiring after the seraphim. “Considering how badly hurt Shepherd Rose was, and how battered you got, I have to wonder if your seraphim were injured too. We aren't able to accommodate them, after all. Are they all right?”

Rose put on her most dazzling and reassuring smile even as Zaveid manifested beside her; “My wind seraph is the only one who was injured, and he's fine now, Sergei. You don't need to worry about them. They heal rapidly when they're resting inside their vessel, which is me. And my water seraph has extremely good healing skills too. I have some very good seraphic partners.”

“Ha! 'Very good'? You have the very best in all Glenwood contracted to you, Rose!” Zaveid scoffed, ruffling Scout's hair as he said it. (Rose just happened to be glancing in Sergei's direction and saw his eyebrows shift at that moment; he _noticed_ that Scout's hair had gotten ruffled by an invisible hand. Although the former Rolancean officer had no real resonance and could never see or hear seraphim himself, he had enough belief and _just enough_ latent resonance that he could sometimes sense their presence. He had proven himself years ago to be just aware enough to be able to deflect a seraph's attacks.)

Alisha raised a hand and beckoned Rose over; “Come here and meet my daughter, Rose. I've been wanting to show her to you.”

Eagerly, Rose did as asked, threading through the room and around the various toys and furniture set up. While she did so, she saw that Scout gravitated over to the small couch by the window. Not a surprise; he wasn't overly comfortable around small children and babies, and he didn't know the Diphda family like Rose did.

Nestled in Alisha's arms was a tiny bundle of joy. The baby was smaller than Rose expected, making her wonder if the baby was younger than she'd thought; as Alisha held the bundle out to her with a radiant smile, Rose gathered it all in carefully, gazing down at the infant's sleepy face.

“She's very tiny, Alisha. How old is she? She's not a newborn is she?”

“Goodness, no, she's not a newborn. Selena is almost six months old, actually,” the princess said with a smile. “She was a month premature, though, so she's playing catch-up in growth; that's why she's small. But she's very healthy and growing quite well. And she has her daddy wrapped around her little tiny fingers already.”

“Not fair, Alisha!” The baby's father protested weakly.

“Utterly fair,” Alisha grinned at her husband. “Selena is Daddy's Little Princess and everyone knows it. You aren't fooling anyone, darling.”

The feel of a new life cradled in her arms was a novel one, really; Rose had next to no experience with children this young. She would have sworn this baby was newly born, that Alisha had arisen from the birthing bed to assist with the hellion hunt this week. (She would be furious with Alisha for doing such a thing!) She was glad to know that in fact this child was older than that. “She's lovely. I meant to congratulate you on her birth, but things got crazy because of that silly hellion, so I didn't get a chance to stop by sooner.”

“Thank you,” Alisha said with heartfelt sincerity. “It means a lot to me to hear you say that.”

_'Rose,'_ Mikleo's voice from within inquired with an odd sense of urgency.  _'Can we please armatize?'_

“What? Why do you want to do that, Mikleo?” She said his name clearly so that Alisha would realize that she was speaking to her seraphim.

_'I want to know what it's like to hold a baby. I've never gotten to do that. If we armatize, then I can feel it through you. Please?'_

“I've got a better idea; come out of there, and I'm sure we can convince Alisha to let you hold the baby for just a moment.”

_'Uh, are you sure about that? I don't imagine Sergei or Alisha will be too keen on seeing their child floating in midair.'_

Rose grinned and murmured beneath her breath so that only her seraphim would hear “You leave that to me.” Then she raised her voice again to a conversational level. “Sergei, could I possibly ask you to, if not leave the room, at least turn around for a few minutes?”

He looked up at her and tilted his head just slightly in silent inquiry. By the look on his face, she wasn't exactly going to be given an option to not explain herself, either. Sergei was a firm ally, but he wasn't a man to be trifled with. He was expecting an explanation, and she was going to give it.

“One of my seraphim would like to hold the baby, but since you can't see him, you'll only see your daughter suspended in empty air. I can't imagine you'd really want to see that.”

“I appreciate the warning,” he said serenely, “but if it's all the same to you, I'd rather not have my faith in your seraphim disregarded. I trust you, Rose.”

“All right,” she said with a grin to him, “just don't freak out. I promise you, Mikleo is a very careful seraph, so he won't do anything to harm your baby, but I can imagine that not seeing the seraph holding her is going to be a very trippy experience.”

She felt the movement within as Mikleo exited her body and manifested himself beside her. “Is it really okay if I do this? I don't know how to hold a baby.”

“Don't worry, I'll show you. It's not hard at all.” She motioned for him to take a seat in the now-vacant rocking chair. As he did so, she felt Lailah pop out excitedly.

“Can I hold her next? Please, Alisha? I haven't held a baby in so long, and I love babies!” In her utter excitement, Lailah temporarily forgot some propriety and grasped Alisha's sleeve in her eagerness, and with Rose's proximity, it triggered Alisha's weak resonance just enough that the princess was clearly able to hear her.

“Of course, Seraph Lailah, that's fine with me. Just be careful with her, of course. My children are very precious to me, after all.”

Rose carefully laid the bundle into Mikleo's waiting arms, and gently moved his arms so that he was cuddling the baby against him. “There you go, Mikleo. It's a nice feeling, isn't it?”

“It's... it's incredible.” He sounded breathless with excitement.

“Kids are sure cute,” Zaveid said from behind Rose, surprising her with his proximity. “Gotta admit, they're amazing. I'm not around them very much this young. Young seraphim aren't usually quite this small, and I kinda gave up the mentor thing a long time ago anyway.” He peered tentatively down at the drowsing baby in Mikleo's arms, and a rare genuine smile formed on his lips. “I'm not sure if Alisha can hear me, but if not, someone give her my compliments. Her daughter is beautiful.”

Rose bristled only momentarily, waiting for a snide comment from someone (most likely Edna) but the sincerity in Zaveid's voice and his expression seemed to convince the others to leave him alone. It was a remarkably candid and unguarded moment with him.

“Thank you,” Alisha said with a smile, looking in his general direction, though it was clear by now from the slightly unfocused look of her eyes that she was having trouble seeing Zaveid. Then she turned her affectionate gaze to her husband and son; “Rose, have your seraphim met my son, Valery? I know I introduced you to him shortly after he was born, but I don't remember your seraphim being there.”

“My friends are always with me; I'm their vessel, after all. They were with me when you first showed me your son. But we haven't seen him since then, and look how big he's gotten!” She turned to look at the toddler currently piling colorful wooden blocks in a stack, giggling and clapping his hands whenever the stack toppled over. His patient father was helping him to place the blocks on the stack,

As the stack toppled yet again, the boy rocked back and forth with his laughter, and Sergei patiently collected the pieces together into a neat pile; “All right, little man, I think that's enough of that for now. Come to Papa, my dear.” He scooped the boy up into his arms and propped him onto a hip with practiced ease.

What happened next ultimately blurred together for Rose upon later recollection. She was focusing on Mikleo, who had seemed to pick up on Lailah's eagerness (bordering on impatience) to have a turn holding the baby and was in the process of handing the bundle over to Rose, when there was a very sudden surge of seraphic energy and then a yelp from Zaveid, that caused an on-edge Scout to explode into motion.

Between one heartbeat and the next, it seemed, they went from being calmly admiring the baby, to sudden chaos as Scout bolted for the door, and both children starting wailing.

“What in god's name was that about?” Sergei, reacting with a soldier's reflexes, had moved himself across the nursery in an eyeblink and had turned his whole body so that he was shielding his son from whatever threat he sensed. In the same space of time, Alisha (also a trained soldier) snatched her daughter from whoever was holding her and had backed up to put distance between herself and the chaos.

“Whoa, easy!” Zaveid said, holding his hands up in a desperate placating gesture. “No need for any of that... Scout, get your ass back here! There's no danger!”

“What happened?” Alisha demanded of Rose. “Why did your seraph suddenly yell like that?”

“What the hell, Zaveid?” Rose spat furiously. “Why did you yell like that?”

The seraph had the decency to look embarrassed. “The kid startled me. He grabbed my hair and yanked. I didn't even know he could see me! It startled me! I had no idea it would make Scout pop off like a damned rabbit though! You'd think, from his reaction, that a hellion had invaded the room.”

Scout came skulking back in, also looking embarrassed. “I feel uneasy because that hellion pair we fought got away. When you yelled, I panicked.”

Rose caught a stray mumbling from Edna (who was still dormant within her; she wasn't comfortable around most humans and preferred to be inside her vessel right now) about stupid old men and idiotic boys and how you could always trust them to screw things up, and the whole muttered tirade brought her back to her senses; “Alisha, Sergei, I apologize for this. It seems that your son accidentally grabbed Zaveid's hair and pulled, startling him, and Zaveid's reaction caused Scout to panic. All of this is because we're still on edge from losing a fight against hellions.”

By now, the couple had recovered from their panic, but at the same time, the atmosphere had changed. A couple of nursemaids arrived after apparently being summoned by the sound of the children crying, and in next to no time, Rose and Scout were all but escorted out of the nursery by the lady of the manse and her lord husband, who guided them to a sitting room nearby.

Lailah had a distinct pout on her pretty face now as she followed along. Mikleo went quietly into Rose to remain dormant within her, but Zaveid seemed reluctant to do so, and now as the two seraphim followed their Shepherd into the sitting room, Rose became aware of the fact that Lailah was glaring daggers at the wind seraph.

“It's your fault I didn't get to hold the baby,” she muttered accusingly. Zaveid grimaced and murmured another apology.

Rose gave both of them a silent command to return to her, and they obeyed without delay.

As the four humans took seats in the sitting room, tea was offered and accepted. Noticeably, Alisha sat close to her husband and seemed to cuddle with him, while Sergei looked almost borderline embarrassed at his wife's overt gestures of affection. He very quickly acclimated to it, however; before any words were spoken, he had gone from abject embarrassment to resignation to acceptance of his wife's insistence on cuddling with him. Perhaps he was less uptight about propriety in private with trusted friends than he used to be. (To be fair, it wasn't like they were being disgustingly romantic; they were literally just sitting very close to each other, with Alisha leaning against his shoulder while he had an arm around her shoulders.)

The tea was a savory herbal one that Rose took an instant liking to. Scout, who liked sweeter things, politely drank as much as he dared before setting his cup aside. Conversation was idle and bland at first. Then Sergei made a passing mention of his children, and Rose saw her opening.

“I wanted to thank you both, on my seraphim's behalf, for letting Mikleo hold your daughter for that little bit of time. He really did enjoy it. He's never held a baby before, and he's always been utterly fascinated in humans. More so than the other seraphim.”

“Is it because of his friendship with Shepherd Sorey?” Sergei asked, and Rose felt herself stop. She was about to ask how he knew about Sorey and Mikleo's childhood friendship, but then she reminded herself of who Sergei was married to.

A stray thought passed through her mind, and almost instantly, to her chagrin, her thought was mirrored nearly verbatim by none other than Zaveid.  _'They must have some very interesting pillow talk.'_

“I wish I knew this Shepherd Sorey,” Scout said into the sudden silence, covering for Rose's inability to answer. “No one will tell me about him. Whenever I ask, everyone clams up and Lailah starts making really bad jokes. Like, really bad, worse than her usual bad jokes.”

_'Hey!'_ Lailah's one-word protest was so petulant that Rose found herself grinning.

“We don't talk about Sorey because it's not nice to talk about someone who can't defend himself,” she added mildly. “Also, because I've told you about Lailah's oath. She can't talk about previous Shepherds or she loses her powers as a Prime Lord.”

_'And besides,'_ Zaveid said,  _'no one's asking you to replace Sorey, Scout. Let sleeping Shepherds lie. Please.'_

Scout looked like he was going to argue, but then he thought better of it and looked away.

“And Sergei, the answer to your question is no, Mikleo's fascination is not because of his friendship with Sorey. Not directly, anyway.” She didn't even need to consult with him or let him speak for himself, because this was a question she herself had asked him before, when she learned of his fascination with humans. “Unlike my other seraph partners, Mikleo is a historian. He has always been interested in human history and record.”

_'That's because the rest of us are walking history,'_ Zaveid quipped, and there was the silent feel of a grimace from Edna.  _'Mikky-boy's a baby to our collective years.'_

Mikleo didn't rise to the bait, and Rose became dimly aware of Lailah softly singing a silly tune in the back of her mind (something about coconuts), and realized why Edna was actually grimacing. Ah yes, this would be because they were discussing Sorey, even if in the periphery.

“So, anyway, enough about that silly previous Shepherd!” She said cheerfully. “As much as I loved Sorey, and you all know that I did, _I'm_ the Shepherd now. The only Shepherd you lot have right now, in fact! At least, until we can find a seraph able to become Prime Lord, and then Scout can try and negotiate with that seraph. Maybe I won't be old and gray when that happens!”

Scout sputtered a little and then looked outraged; “Do you have so little faith in me?”

“I know how you are with seraphim.” She just grinned at him. “C'mon, Scout, don't get all huffy with me. We'll find you a Prime Lord, you just have to not muck it up by being a little shit-face to them when we meet them.”

He looked away, clearly stung, and she felt bad instantly. She'd been trying to ease the tension by teasing him, but instead she'd upset him. She'd have to make it up to him later, somehow.

To her surprise, Sergei intervened smoothly; “Scout, may I ask, do you know how to use a sword?”

“Er, yes, though I'm not exactly very good at it. I'm, er, not particularly built for using a big sword.”

“Allow me to make you an offer, then. Train yourself with one. A short sword is fine. I can help you find one that suits your body build. And then, when you are a full Shepherd, come back here, and if I judge you to be good enough, I will teach you a secret arte that I taught to Shepherd Sorey. There are only two other people on Glenwood, besides me, who know how to use it.”

That did the trick of changing the mood entirely in the room. The four seraphim were utterly silent, watching intently through Rose's eyes, while Rose and Alisha stared in bewilderment at Sergei. Scout, for his part, was cautious.

“You... you're... C-can I hold you to that?”

“Of course. I will be the one who ultimately decides if you are worthy of the Lion's Howl, but if you come to me as a Shepherd, I will give you a chance to prove yourself worthy of it. And if you are, I will teach it to you. But you must learn how to use a sword properly, because it does not work well with long bladed weapons such as Alisha uses, nor does it work well with short bladed weapons like daggers, such as Shepherd Rose uses.”

“M-may I ask why you're making this offer to me?”

“Because I like you, Squire Scout. You actually remind me of someone I loved dearly. And, as I understand it, Shepherd Sorey made good use of this arte. Perhaps you could as well. I have made the offer to Shepherd Rose before, but because she does not wish to use swords, I could not in good conscience teach her an arte she'll never use.” He set down his teacup and fixed Scout with a very intense look. “I cannot offer much to you that is my own to give. This mansion, and all the wealth within it, and any titles I have acquired, come to me because of this.” He held up his hand to indicate his wedding ring. “They are not mine to freely give. But the Lion's Howl is something I can give to someone worthy. And it may someday serve you well.”

Still stammering (because he did fully understand the gravity and the honor of the offer just made to him), Scout accepted the challenge, and then when he lamented that he didn't know much about the sword and wasn't sure how to learn more, Sergei generously offered to give him some lessons tomorrow, and Mikleo popped out briefly to tell the young Squire that he'd be more than happy to spar with him whenever they had free time, to help him learn. Although Sorey's name never escaped the seraph's lips, it was clear to Rose that the subject was near to his mind.

Conversation meandered onward from there to discussing how they were going to try tracking the Singing Phantom. Rose and Scout extracted from Alisha a promise to stay home and guard her mansion from the fiery bird hellion that was known to be in the region, and the two of them would go after the horse hellion on their own.

Then, once business was concluded and details hammered out, Rose and Scout were taken to a private dining room, where the table was set with a large pot of drago stew and six generous-sized bowls (and complementary silverware, and drinking glasses full of a sweet fruit juice) so they could eat together with their seraphim, without low-resonance servants freaking out at the floating silverware. After a filling meal, arrangements were made for them to stay in a guest room. They would spend the next couple of days here, ferreting out where the Singing Phantom and its fiery pursuer had gone, and once they had a bead on it, they'd give chase.

As the evening drew to a close, Alisha allowed Lailah the promised chance to hold the baby again, and Rose got to play with little Valery. Then, the two children were bundled off to bed, and Rose and Scout took themselves to their own beds soon after. They had an early day tomorrow, after all. Scout would get his lessons with Sergei in, while Rose and her seraphim scouted the mansion perimeter for any clues.

As she settled into the bedding, Rose thought for a moment she heard a voice singing in the distance, but as she sat up and trained her senses outward, she couldn't hear anything.

_'That wasn't the Singing Phantom,'_ Zaveid said sleepily from within her.  _'The Singing Phantom is a male voice. That was a woman's voice.'_

“You heard it too?”

_'I heard what you thought you heard. Not sure if I actually heard anything real. Go to sleep, Rose. You're in no condition to deal with that thing even if it was the Singing Phantom.'_

Deciding that he was right, and since she couldn't hear anything now except Scout's soft slumber-breathing (not quite a snore), she curled up and drifted off.


	3. Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eluded by the Singing Phantom, the team manages to corner and subdue the firebird hellion, and discovers it is a seraph named Rhiannon, who is intimately connected to Bucephalus, the Singing Phantom, bringing them ever closer to their ultimate goal of quelling this rampaging hellion.

Hellions who don't want to be caught can be very, very hard to track. Rose knew this intrinsically, but she still got frustrated when marginally intelligent hellions, aware of her aim to purify them and thus end their current existence, did a runner on her like this. But  _this_ ? This was borderline humiliating!

The Singing Phantom had been evading her for the majority of a year now, ever since that first skirmish back in the Glaivend Basin early last summer. Now, with winter slowly receding and spring on the horizon, it was absolutely imperative that she find and defeat this son of a bitch now.

The problem was, despite being so blatant with its presence – it  _still_ sang regularly, and loudly enough to be heard for kilometers around – it was incredibly hard to keep track of and catch up to, because it moved so swiftly and because it moved erratically.

Fortunately, Rose had access to the amazing gossip network of the normins. These adorable little creatures loved to talk to each other, and they loved to investigate weird seraphic things. Thus, when she put word out that she was targeting a horse-like hellion known for despoiling farmlands and for singing at night, they were able to swiftly get word to her whenever there were sightings. Unfortunately, no matter how fast she and Scout could move to try and intercept it, the hellion was much faster.

Since the catastrophic attempt to trap the Singing Phantom on the Diphda estate, for the past couple of months, Rose and Scout had been trying to catch up to the damned thing, but each time they were just a little too late. Two more farms had been damaged (though thankfully not completely destroyed) since then. Weirdly enough, those two farms weren't desecrated like normal; instead, they sustained extensive fire damage. There were still no human or livestock casualties, only damage to crops and a barn had been scorched and damaged, but not destroyed.

One of the normin had seen the Singing Phantom fighting with another hellion, a fiery bird-like hellion that seemed to pursue the horse wherever it went. The normin's account, and the damage they saw in the aftermath, seemed to confirm what Rose was beginning to suspect: the fire bird was indeed actively hunting the Singing Phantom, exclusively and vengefully.

This proved to be a valuable piece of information that changed their tactics. If they could track this bird hellion, it could lead them to the horse hellion. If it turned on them, then at least they could purify it, and if it was a hellionized seraph, maybe they could enlist the seraph's help.

All of this led invariably to right now, just outside a small farm in Rolance near the Hyland border. The local Lord of the Land, a water seraph named Oshwa, had played a trick on the fire hellion to draw it close so they could track it, or purify it. Now they had it trapped inside a temporary domain cage set up by Oshwa and some normin helpers, and it was perched on a branch, glaring down at them menacingly.

“There's something vaguely, heartbreakingly familiar about this hellion,” Lailah murmured as they paused to assess the situation and formulate a plan. There was a way for the hellion to escape if it flew high enough – Oshwa's domain cage wasn't a perfect dome, unfortunately. It was weakest at its apex. If Rose or Scout armatized with Mikleo too early in order to snipe the bird out of the tree, it could fly upward, break through the domain cage and escape. They had to immobilize it first. 

Their roles were fairly clearly defined in this fight. There was really no room for improvisation. Scout, Edna and Lailah were going to try and keep the hellion focused on them, or at least distracted, while Zaveid tried to sneak up close enough to entangle it with his pendulums. Once that happened, Rose would armatize with Mikleo and shoot it with Aqua Limit. Oshwa and his normin helpers were doing their level best to hold the domain cage together, despite the increasingly hostile domain radiating from the hellion.

In this fight, it was going to have to be Rose who used Mikleo's power for the final shot, unless they succeeded in completely grounding the hellion; if it got up into the air at all, there was no way Scout would be able to shoot it down.

There was a curious imbalance of power between Rose and Scout that she didn't recall ever being there between her and Sorey back when she was a Squire. Back then, she and Sorey had traded seraphim around in battle as needed, each capable of using each seraph's skills with about equal ability. With Rose and Scout, things were a bit different. Scout had no trouble armatizing with Edna and Zaveid (in fact, he was extremely good with both of them) and only periodic troubles with the mystic arte for the Fire Armatus. However, despite a good relationship with Mikleo, the young Squire was unable to properly utilize the Water Armatus for anything other than casting seraphic artes. His bow shots while armatized were weak and imprecise, making the whole armatus unwieldy for him. It wasn't a dislike of the element or the seraph; it seemed to be a fundamental deficiency on Scout's part, probably largely tied to the Divine Artefact that Mikleo used to create his armatus.

The confusing part of this was that Scout was decent with a small shortbow. Not great, perhaps, but he didn't have to be. But he could shoot. Why he had so much trouble with Mikleo's bow, she wasn't sure. Perhaps he wasn't surrendering himself properly to the seraph's power? She was used to allowing her seraphim to guide her and assist her during armatization; they were more than a cloak or a weapon, after all. Armatus was about temporary fusion of all senses. Two beings – human and seraph – became a single, greater whole, and their power increased greatly.

On the branch, smoldering with barely-contained rage, the hellion unfurled its wings and cocked them into position, gathering itself to launch upward. Rose tensed up. There were two ways they could win this fight, but both of them relied on this hellion not getting over their heads. The only seraph capable of effectively attacking at range in an upward direction was Zaveid, who was weak to fire.

She heard Edna hiss urgently, “Go now, Scout!” and the Squire unsheathed his knives.

“Okay, Ugly, let's go! Come get me, if you think you can! You want that singing nag, you are going through us!” He threw a knife directly at the bird, and it deflected the knife by folding its wings in front of its head, forming a temporary shield and protecting itself. Then, with a screeching roar of outrage, it launched itself from the branch forward and down, toward Scout.

Edna summoned up a rock wall to protect her and Scout just before impact. Lailah and Rose flanked around to try and drive the hellion into further rage and give Zaveid just that much more time to get into range. Mikleo came up from behind Rose and send a powerful blast of water at the hellion; which then took flight and surged upward, slamming into the edge of the domain cage. The cage shuddered under the force of the impact of the hellion's strike.

The two humans and three seraphim traded the hellion around for several minutes, trying to keep it occupied and to bring it into range; three times, it soared up out of range and slammed against the top of the domain cage, but a brave normin reinforced the roof of the cage to keep the hellion in.

Then, abruptly, there was a blast of wind and Zaveid's pendulums swirled out and tangled around the bird hellion, slamming it to the ground. It screamed in rage, but that was all that Rose needed.

“Ready, Mikleo?”

“Do it!”

“Luzrov Rulay!” She held her hand up, and within heartbeats, Mikleo had dissolved into a fine mist and reformed himself around her as armor, the Divine Artefact bow gathering in her upraised hand. There was a familiar coldness, a brief wet chill that she associated with armatizing with him, but then she also felt the surge of power through her arms as she drew back on the bow. Surrendering herself to Mikleo's expertise, she let him do the aiming while she provided the propulsion and drew back as hard as she could. Then when she felt the telltale tingle in her fingertips, she released the Aqua Limit shot.

The full force of the attack struck the immobilized hellion and there was a brief, prismatic blast of light as the purification took hold. When the light and sizzling smoke cleared, what remained on the ground where the hellion had been was a vaguely human-shaped form sprawled senselessly on the ground.

As the armatus was removed, Rose patted Mikleo on the shoulder; “Thank you, Mikleo. You really are amazing.”

“That was really simple and exactly according to plan, Rose. I appreciate your gratitude, but it wasn't very hard to do.” He quirked an eyebrow at her and smiled. “You don't need to coddle me, you know.”

“Ungrateful little ass,” she teased. Then she smiled broadly at him. “I couldn't have done this without you, all the same.”

“Of course you couldn't.”

They turned their attention to the seraph on the ground in front of them, as the others gathered cautiously around it. The purified seraph sat up slowly and shook long ruby-red hair hair to dislodge leaves and dirt. It was a female seraph, and she looked dazed.

“Rhiannon!” Lailah exclaimed. “I just knew that I recognized you! Oh, Rhiannon, it happened again?”

The seraph looked up at her in bewilderment, before her expression registered a trio of expressions: recognition, chagrin and relief. “Lailah? Did you save me yet again?”

“Who is this, Lailah?” Rose asserted herself as Mikleo went to tell Oshwa that he could take down the domain cage now. The seraph looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn't place her just yet.

“This is Rhiannon, a fire seraph I've known for a long time.” Lailah helped the seraph to stand up. “This the second time she's hellionized.”

“Third,” the female seraph said mournfully. “This is the third time you and a Shepherd have saved me from being a hellion. It seems that I am too weak to resist malevolence and that dread transformation.” Then her expression grew even sadder; “Especially now that I am all alone.”

“Alone?” Lailah took one of her hands in a gesture of comfort. “What happened?”

Silence at first as Rhiannon seemed to lose herself in thought. During the silence, Rose caught a stray, half-recalled memory of a dark, dreary and frightening dungeon. Shackled hellions in cages, left to rot in a forgotten dungeon...

By now, Mikleo and Oshwa had come over to rejoin them. The Lord of the Land expressed concern over Rhiannon's condition, and she softly assured them all that she would be just fine soon enough. Then Mikleo said what was nagging at the back of Rose's mind.

“You... I remember you. You were one of the hellionized seraphim we found in that abandoned crucible, north of Guinevere, right?”

_Oh no..._ Now she remembered fully. Shortly after she had taken on the full mantle of the Shepherd, making a brand new pact with Lailah and her three Sub Lords, Rose had heard rumors from the normin (the first time, in fact, where the normin chatterbox network proved highly useful and later became how Rose tracked down noteworthy hellions to purify) of an underground labyrinth of ruins deep under a location just north of the Guinevere tower, where a bunch of hellions were trapped. It had been Rose's first hellion-hunting mission as the new Shepherd, and she had taken to it with gusto.

It had proven to be anything but a routine hellion-purifying errand. What they had found had been what Zaveid believed to be an abandoned crucible, a place where Heldalf had thrown humans and seraphim alike into a malevolent atmosphere in order to hellionize them. Worse, it appeared to be what Zaveid called a “dragon crucible” – a place where Heldalf had experimented converting hellionized seraphim into actual dragons. Apparently at one point, Heldalf had wanted to have an army of dragons, until he learned the hard way that dragons couldn't be tamed or commanded, even by the Lord of Calamity. Apparently, when he abandoned the idea of creating an army of dragons, he abandoned this particular crucible entirely, leaving the hellions trapped inside to suffer whatever demise they could come to.

Deep in the bowels of an underground labyrinth, collapsing inward on itself from disrepair, Rose and her seraphim had found a handful of dungeon cells serving like tiger cages, some housing a pair of chained up hellions, every one of them a hellionized seraph. Most of them had been in the beginning stages of dragonization, though none, thankfully, had fully transformed. It had been a terrible, heartbreaking endeavor, to break the chains and shackles binding each hellion and then purify each one. It had also been difficult to work, underground in the thick, miasma-like domain of near-dragons, but they had persevered. There had been seven seraphim they'd saved from a gruesome end.

This Rhiannon had been one of them. Rose hadn't learned her name at the time, but now that she got a good look at her, she remembered those jewel-like eyes and that flaming red hair.

After Mikleo's statement, the fire seraph turned to him and looked at him with a gaze full of resignation; “Yes, I was. It seems you must have been one of the seraphim who helped me then?”

“I'm one of Lailah's Sub Lords, so yes.”

Edna was frowning at the fire seraph, with such intensity that Lailah actually frowned at her, as if to tell her to cut it out. Edna, being what she was, ignored the unvoiced command and instead spoke. Her voice was razor-sharp and ice cold; “Didn't take you long to hellionize all over again. And you can't blame the Lord of Calamity for this one.”

“Edna!” Lailah said sharply. “Please be gentle with her!”

Rhiannon turned away; “I suppose I deserve that. But what would you have me do? My husband and son are dead, dragonized and killed by the Lord of Calamity. My partner has become the hellion known as Bucephalus. I am alone in this cold world, and I have no place to establish my own domain. Yes, I am a weakling, and I can make no guarantees that I will not hellionize again and again. Judge me if you must.”

Zaveid took a step closer; “Did you lose all hope because Parill and Praetor are gone?”

Surprisingly, the fire seraph tossed her head pompously; “Of course I didn't. I'm still in mourning for them, but I would never surrender to despair because they're gone. I have more strength than  _that_.”

“Then why did you hellionize again?”

“Bucephalus did it. He has a substantial domain around him. I told you, he used to be my partner, until the Lord of Calamity caught all of us. He managed to escape the crucible and has yet to dragonize. I've been trying to catch him, to keep him from dragonizing, because he's all I have left, but I can't do anything for him, and apparently I've been too close to him too much... I suppose it may happen again, but it is a risk I must take. I can't do anything for him, but I also can't just leave him alone. I have to find him and keep him from dragonizing, even if I have to kill him myself, somehow...” 

“Bucephalus?” Mikleo inquired. “Can you describe him to us?”

“Unless I miss my guess, you have fought him before. You might even be tracking him now. He is a black quadrupedal hellion that looks like a hybrid of a horse and a bull.”

“So he's the Singing Phantom?”

She blinked in confusion; “I suppose he does sing, yes... Inky always did love to sing.”

“Well, you're in luck, then,” Rose said, “because we're trying to catch that hellion. He's been causing all sorts of havoc lately, attacking farms and farmland, and if we leave him alone, he'll cause widespread starvation. You were following him as a hellion yourself, so you must have a way of tracking him that we don't. Can you help us? Either way, you probably should come with us for the time being.”

“Rose,” Lailah said, her voice a soft warning.

“I am not a fighter,” Rhiannon said. “I will help you in any way that I can, if I can, but I cannot fight with you. Are you okay with having a non-combatant following you around like that, even into battle?”

“Rose,” Lailah said again.

“If we leave you to yourself, you'll hellionize again, won't you?”

“Probably, knowing my luck.”

“So come with us. We'll find you a suitable temporary vessel, and you can be safe from hellionizing again while you're close to me. I think I'd rather do that than have to purify you yet again.”

Rhiannon flinched and looked away. In that moment, Lailah asserted herself with unexpected vigor.

“Rose, she can't come with us without a contract. I'm sorry, but no seraph can travel with a Shepherd for any length of time without a Sub Lord pact.”

“Come on, you're kidding, right? We've escorted Lords of the Land to their new vessels before.”

“This is very different, Rose. You are suggesting that she travel with us for an indefinite amount of time, while we hunt and fight a specific hellion.” She turned look at Rhiannon, and her gaze was unexpectedly hard. “She cannot travel with me and my Sub Lords unless she becomes a temporary Sub Lord herself. I can't allow her to stay with us without a pact.”

“But I don't need another fire seraph, Lailah. I have you.”

“That isn't the point.”

“Then what _is_ the point? She's a vulnerable seraph who could help us find the Singing Phantom so we can end his rampage. What's the problem?”

“She is a seraph prone to hellionization. If she travels with us, she will witness us armatizing. She will learn our True Names without being bound by a pact or oath, and thus be able to wield power over us.” Lailah had her hands on her hips. Rose couldn't remember ever seeing her so stern. “As the Prime Lord, I cannot allow you to be reckless and endanger me or my Sub Lords, Rose. I will not allow this. Please understand, I care about Rhiannon a great deal and I feel bad for her, but my duty is to you and my Sub Lords.”

Rose threw her hands up; “All right, so what do you propose we do for her, then? We can't leave her alone, she's made it clear she's going to keep chasing this Bucephalus.If his domain is strong enough to hellionize her again, she needs to be around someone with a strong enough domain to counter it. She's not a fighter, so a Sub Lord pact is pointless.”

Rhiannon looked like she was about to argue, but Lailah was faster; “She does not need to be a fighter to be a Sub Lord, Rose. Just because she is a Sub Lord, does not mean she has to deploy in a fight, nor do you have to armatize with her. And unless I am much mistaken, she is a decent healer.”

Mystified at the sudden, again, turn of the conversation, she looked at the red-haired seraph; “Are you willing to do this, Rhiannon? We'd be happy to have you with us, if only to keep you safe.”

The seraph tilted her head back a little, raising her chin; “I will not be toted around like a fragile bauble. If I must become a temporary Sub Lord, I will do my part. Just do not ask me to fight.”

“Then you will become a Sub Lord?”

“If I must, yes. But it must be temporary. I have no desire to serve a Shepherd for any longer than absolutely necessary. I am ill-suited to a Shepherd's journey. My only goal is to have my partner restored to me.”

Rose shrugged; “If you're okay with it, then I'm okay with it. If you can help us quell the Singing Phantom and restore the damage he's done, all the better. Lailah, go ahead with the pact.”

The Prime Lord fire seraph smiled brightly and reached for one of Rhiannon's hands. The other fire seraph just quietly let her do it, though it was obvious that she was a little reluctant.

“Here let our pact be forged, that my unquavering incandescence may be as thy purification. Shouldst thou accept this burden, recite aloud thy True Name.”

Rhiannon paused and for a long moment it seemed as though she might decline her part of the pact, but then she spoke clearly; “Baelsim Yulbay.”

“Baelsim Yulbay?” Rose tested the name out in her mouth, and found that it flowed agreeably. “What does it mean?”

“It means Vestal Rian, or Rhiannon of the Hearth. That is my blessing. I was once a vestal spirit. In exchange for worship and a well-kept flame in my shrine, I kept a fire in the hearth, a domestic blessing in my domain.”

_A fire seraph who keeps a domestic blessing around the homestead. I know_ exactly _where she needs to go when she's done being a Sub Lord_. “Rhiannon, do you wish to become a Lord of the Land once we've saved your partner? Because I know exactly where you can be a very effective one. A former Squire of mine, the lady of a substantial Hyland estate and a devotee of the seraphim, would do everything in her power to see to it that you're comfortable in exchange for your blessing.”

Rhiannon's eyes widened; “I would... not refuse it out of hand. I will consider it. If that pleases you? But for now, milady Shepherd, if I have your leave, I should like to get some rest. I'm very fatigued...” She pressed a hand to her forehead wearily, and then dissolved into a warm mist, going dormant into her new vessel. Rose felt a brief bead warmth in her chest for just a moment. Then there was the sensation of a sigh of relief, and she got a strange mental image of a tiny ginger kitten curling up on a thick cushion before a roaring fire.

She felt a deep sense of protectiveness. This seraph that she had just taken on was a damaged, fragile creature. Hellionized multiple times, mourning the loss of her family (whom she apparently witnessed the deaths of) and desperate to save someone precious to her, the fire seraph was admirably brave, but also very vulnerable.

“I'll take good care of you, Rhiannon,” she murmured. “You're safe with me.”

Then she looked over to her wind seraph, who was the seraph nearest her at the moment now. There was something she needed to do in order to help protect her fragile new Sub Lord from things that might further traumatize her.

“Zaveid,” she said firmly, “I don't need to remind you that she's a grieving widow, do I? None of your shenanigans with her, please.”

To her surprise, given how easy-going he usually was when she referenced his relentless flirting, he frowned angrily; “Are you seriously telling me that you think I shouldn't flirt with her?”

“I am. What of it? She's fragile.”

“Rhiannon is not nearly as weak as she wants you to think she is. Trust me, she can take care of herself. I know her, I knew Praetor and Parill. Trust me, that woman? She's not as fragile as she seems. If she doesn't like what I'm doing, she's not afraid to put me in my place.”

“All the same, I'm asking you to leave her alone. She's _grieving_ right now. Her family was dragonized and then killed in front of her and she was hellionized twice. I think she deserves a respite from someone like you.”

Based on the way his eyes narrowed and his mouth drew into a tight line, he was now furious, though his voice was still calm as he spoke: “Tell me, Rose, what makes Rhiannon's grief more sacred than Edna's? They both lost beloved family to dragonization. What makes their grief more sacred than my own? I knew and loved Eizen, and was powerless to save him. And what about Mikleo? His best friend is gone to him. Or Lailah, and all the Shepherds she's served and lost. We are all grieving in some form; Rhiannon is not special in this.”

She scowled at him.

“We are all damaged in some way, my dear. We can tease each other despite this, because we are strong enough, and because we are a team. Don't do her the disservice of coddling her. Don't assume that because she got caught by malevolence, she's so weak that she has to be wrapped in fleece and protected from every possible ache and pain. But, if you insist, I'll keep my distance from her.”

 

* * *

 

They stopped at a small inn near the border with Hyland, and were granted the inn's most luxurious suite once the innkeeper was made aware of who Rose was. Herb-rubbed fish and mashed sweet potatoes were served to them. As they gathered around a generous table laden with food, the newest seraph Sub Lord manifested to ogle them.

“What are you doing?” She was clearly confused and possibly disgusted.

“What does it look like we're doing?” Zaveid said with a grin. “It's dinner time!”

Rhiannon shook her head slowly; “You are seraphim. You're not human. What do you think you're doing? Humans need that; we don't.”

“Doesn't stop us from enjoying a hearty meal when it's provided to us,” Mikleo said calmly. “We can enjoy well-cooked food, after all, even if we don't require it for sustenance.”

“The country faces a food shortage and famine, and yet you seraphim insist on eating?”

“Then you can leave your portion for our humans,” Edna said blandly as she collected her dinner together and moved aside. She pointedly ignored Rhiannon after that.

After a long moment, the fire seraph turned her nose up and said haughtily; “I'm going to go outside for a while to get some fresh air.”

There was a sense of an unvoiced sigh of relief when she left the room. Rose suppressed a groan. Rhiannon had seemed fragile and delicate only for the first day and a half, while she recovered from the shock of being purified. Then, almost immediately, she made herself very unwelcome and unpleasant. Edna was exceptionally indifferent to her, to the point of ignoring her in almost every circumstance; Zaveid seemed to be honoring Rose's request to leave Rhiannon alone; and the fire seraph seemed to outright avoid Mikleo at all turns. Only Lailah seemed to converse with Rhiannon without too much antagonism, and now even she was starting to grow tired of her.

Rose wanted to be angry somehow, but there was something about Rhiannon that also made her think of Dezel. There was an awkwardness to Rhiannon that reminded her of Dezel's prickliness at the start. He had held everyone at arm's length, afraid to bond with anyone because of how badly he'd been hurt before. But he had slowly unfolded, right before the disastrous fight that ended his life. There was a melancholy about Rhiannon that made Rose want to help her, even as she got frustrated at the fire seraph's unwillingness to get along with the rest of her seraphim.

The six of them ate in their usual companionable manner. Scout, as usual, was largely silent because he was so focused on stuffing his face. His appetite was almost impressive considering he wasn't a very big young man. Rose suspected he was going through a growth spurt, given how much he had been eating lately in particular, and she was pretty sure he was getting taller almost before her very eyes. Mikleo and Edna started arguing mildly about something related to healing artes (it seemed that Edna was now interested in learning more about healing artes, but was not a very good student because she tended to argue with her tutor over everything) and Zaveid gently teased Lailah, who tolerated it all with her usual good humor.

Once they were done with their dinner and had cleared away their dishes, Edna declared that she was too tired to do any more and went dormant into her vessel. Scout flopped onto his bed and dozed off. Zaveid decided to go outside and have a look around for a bit before coming in for the night. Mikleo found a book on the shelf to read, and Lailah did her own thing. Rose, feeling like maybe she should try and to talk with Rhiannon, decided to go outside.

“Lailah, I think we need to tell Rhiannon everything. There are things that we all know because we were there, that she doesn't know. If she's going to travel with us for a while, I think she needs to know more about us. Are you going to stop me from telling her?”

The Prime Lord looked up at her and grimaced; “I won't stop you, but you know I can't help you and I really can't approve of this.”

“As long as it's me doing it, not you, it doesn't violate your oath.”

Unhappily, Lailah looked away; “It's not a matter of my oath, Rose. I just don't know that Rhiannon needs to know  _everything_ . It isn't even a matter of trust. I trust her, but I don't know that she deserves to have it all dumped on her.  Don't forget that she's been suffering for a long time and has felt abandoned by both humans and seraphim. ”

There was no further disagreement from the others, though Rose did give them time to voice dissent. She was actually glad that Scout was apparently asleep, because she didn't really want to have this discussion with him.  _He_ didn't need to know as much as  Rose felt that Rhiannon  did .  Scout was still a young boy; he had time to learn about Eizen and Sorey more if he wanted to.

It was cold outside when she stepped out. Cold enough that she wondered if Zaveid, with his shirtlessness, was going to be okay (it was winter and there was a stiff, cold breeze outside) but reminded herself that her wind seraph could handle himself. He knew where to go to warm up if he got cold, and as a wind seraph he could slide in between breezes, shielding himself from their effects.

Rhiannon was sitting beneath a ragged-looking leafless tree, looking up at the moon. The expression on her face, before she realized Rose was approaching, was mournful and wistful. She was probably thinking about her lost family.

When she looked over at Rose, her expression flattened and she looked displeased but didn't actively try to chase the Shepherd away. “Did you need something?”

“I wanted to talk to you, but it's really a little too cold out here for me. Would you please come inside? We can sit in the common room by the fireplace, maybe.”

“I don't need a fireplace. If you're cold, come closer to me. I'll warm you up. I'm a fire seraph, after all.”

“Let's just go inside.”

Rhiannon scowled; “Shepherd, you will have to forgive me, but I do not want to be around other humans. You and your Squire are fine, I have no qualms with you. But the other humans? They make my stomach twist. I repeat, if you're cold, come closer, I will chase the chill away for you. I can't do much for you as a seraph, but that's one thing I can do.” She touched the ground next to her.

Swallowing some trepidation, Rose did as asked and walked over, taking a seat next to the seraph on ground. The earth beneath her rump was cold and damp, making it uncomfortable. But then Rhiannon cupped her hands around a tiny flame, and the next thing Rose knew, the chill around her was gone, replaced with a comfortable warmth.

“You said you wanted to talk to me. Please do not ask me about my family. I am not ready to talk about them yet. I'm sorry.”

“I'm not here for that. In fact, you don't need to talk at all. I want you to know a few things.”

She launched into a monologue about her own history as the Shepherd, about the various burdens each of her seraphim carried, and the unspoken name that held them all together: Shepherd Sorey. Rhiannon was silent and looked uninterested for most of the narrative, though when Rose spoke of Eizen and the fight at Rayfalke, finally laying to rest a tormented dragonized seraph, the fire seraph did duck her head in and look away for a while.

When she finished, Rhiannon shifted away a few centimeters, and when she spoke, her voice was oddly full of emotion. “Thank you for telling me. Now I think I understand why I do not fit in with your group; I am an interloper. You do not need me and I don't belong here. And worse, I can't ever go back to what I was. Parill and Praetor are gone, and Inky will need rehabilitation if he even survives.” She rubbed her face wearily. Oddly enough, despite how sad she clearly was, there was no sign of tears in her eyes.

Her words made Rose feel very sad, but she could see the sense in what she was saying; “We don't hate you; we don't even dislike you. We're just uncomfortable around you because you're so prickly. You are welcome to stay with us for as long as you need to. We will keep you safe. You deserve that much, after all you've been through.”

“There, see? You just confirmed it. You took me in out of pity, and you keep me with you for the same reason. I detest being pitied.”

There was an uncomfortable silence.  _This reminds me a little bit of Zaveid when he first joined us... except he wasn't so antagonistic toward us. He just felt like nobody liked him, and he had a good reason to think so, after all those times he forced Sorey into a fight._

But unlike Rhiannon, upon joining Sorey's team, Zaveid had made a dedicated effort toward becoming friends with his new companions, laying to rest once and for all the animosity he'd once fostered. It had taken them all some time to accept him as Dezel's replacement, but they had accepted him, and no one (not even Edna, who complained about him the most) thought him an interloper now. He was a valued member of the team, even when he was at his most annoying.

Into the silence that had fallen between them, Rhiannon heaved a sigh. “When this is over, I think I will accept that post as a Lord of the Land which you mentioned, because it is all that is left to me. I can never be what I once was. But I must see this through... I have to see Inky restored. I don't think I'll be at peace while he's at large as a hellion, knowing how close he is to dying the way the others died. So I must beg of you to tolerate me until you fulfill your promise to purify him.”

“So Inky is your partner's name?”

“His name is Inkitatus.” She said nothing more about him, which Rose found frustrating. How was this male seraph her “partner” and yet not her husband or lover? What sort of partnership did they have? Rhiannon was utterly tight-lipped about it, and Zaveid had deferred to the fire seraph both times Rose tried to ask him what he knew. (Lailah had defaulted _immediately_ to bad jokes when asked, which Rose suspected meant that Maotelus was involved somehow.)

“Why do you call that hellion 'Bucephalus' anyway?”

“That monster is _not_ my Inky! Inkitatus would _never_ hurt humans or their farms.  He loves humans.”

“That's not what I asked and you know it. I know he's not the seraph you knew. I saw what you looked like before we purified you. You were a fiery bird. But we had no name for you, and your Bucephalus has always been known as the Singing Phantom to us, because he sings and because those who can hear him, often can't see him. Why 'Bucephalus'? Where did that name come from?”

Rhiannon's eyes became wide for a long moment, before she turned away; “I didn't name him. But it's a better, more fitting name than 'Singing Phantom' so that is what I will call that abomination.”

“Can you tell me more about Inkitatus?” It was a risk, since Rhiannon had asked Rose to not ask about her lost family, but since this seraph wasn't dead, maybe she would be more willing to talk.

“What do you want to know about him?”

“Well, how is he your partner? What is his element? What is his blessing? How did you meet him? Anything you can tell me.”

Complete silence for several heartbeats; “Can I ask you again to not ask me about my family? If you must know Inky's elemental weakness in order to defeat and purify him, I will tell you that, but he is a sensitive seraph who would want to make his own impression on you.”

Rose sighed in frustration; Rhiannon had a point, but she felt like the seraph was doing this deliberately. “You know, I'm just trying to make you feel welcome in my group, you don't have to be such a cactus!”

The seraph flinched visibly. “I'm sorry. I appreciate your efforts, and I am very grateful for all you've done for me, but I can't...” Her face scrunched up suddenly in grief. “I can't sleep because of the dreams... I'm sorry, I must seem so ungrateful to you, and I will understand if you choose to end my pact because I have made everything difficult.”

_She's guilt-tripping me!_ Rose wanted to be outraged but the guilt trip was working, which just made her angrier, but helped keep her mouth shut.

With some effort, Rhiannon smoothed her face into impassivity; “As to Inky's weaknesses, he is a Void Seraph, so he has no elemental weakness, and he is strongly resistant to Seraphic Artes. He is somewhat weak to Martial Artes, if you can pin him into place, but he is very fast and elusive. I believe you can alter a Void hellion's elemental weakness with traps, but he is very smart and may not fall for a trap. He and I are very strongly bonded, so he may react if he thinks I'm in danger. But that depends on how much of Inky's seraphic presence is still in there, too.”

The fire seraph was starting to stand up and dust off. It looked like she was done talking and was allowing herself to be drawn inside the inn.

“One more question. I'm sorry, I know you don't want questions about your family but I need to know why you talk about a son. Seraphim don't reproduce normally, and as I understand it, they tend to refer to each other as sibling rather than as parent and child. Why do you call him your son?”

“Praetor? We raised him, so yes, he is our son. No, I did not give birth to him, but I raised him. Parill was an earth seraph, and I am a fire seraph. Shortly after we married, we discovered a newly born earth seraph, born at the base of a sleeping volcano. We took him in and raised him. In doing so, Parill and I honed our own blessings.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why do you need to know? Why does it matter to you how I define my family?”

“I felt it was important to know. I feel like I don't know you, and you won't talk about your family, nor will anyone else. It's a question I've been wondering. You're the first seraph I've met who actually claimed to be a parent.”

“Seraphim born of natural formations can be as helpless as newborn humans. Praetor was little more than a toddler when we found him, and he needed a lot of guidance. We lived as a family for a long time, before that monster came and ruined our peace.” Then her face crumpled with grief and her eyes glistened with tears that she struggled to keep in. “Are we done talking? Please, no more questions. Give me time to mourn them before you ask any more questions.”

“Let's go inside. I'm tired and I think I would like to go to bed. We can discuss how to find and catch Bucephalus later.”

As the bubble of heat broke open and she felt the chilly evening air invade what had been comfortable warmth, Rose shivered, rubbed her arms briskly, and then she hurried into the inn. Once inside, she sighed in relief at the enveloping warmth from the fire in the common room fireplaces.

“Shepherd?” Rhiannon was right behind her. “Before we go back... Thank you.” She had tears in her eyes and she looked miserable but she gave Rose a fragile smile. “I... will try to be less like a cactus. I don't want everyone to hate me. Will you... help me?”

“Of course I will. Now let's go back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Charliez (@katamarii) for helping me come up with Rhiannon's True Name. 
> 
> Also, Inkitatus is a phonetic re-spelling of a historic name, Incitatus (which is pronounced as I have spelled it, with the K, rather than "In-see-ta-tus" which is how I had always pronounced it until I learned my folly). If you want to know where I got inspiration for Bucephalus/Inkitatus, just google "Bucephalus" and "Incitatus"


	4. Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose and her seraphim finally corner and battle Bucephalus once and for all. In the aftermath, they learn that there is much more to the seraph Inkitatus than expected.

It took way longer to track down the Singing Phantom, Bucephalus, than Rose would have liked. By the time they managed to catch up to it and get it cornered, they were well into spring and close to summer, making for over a year that Bucephalus had been terrorizing all of Glenwood.

It wasn't a total loss, since they purified and saved a dozen seraphim over the course of the year. They also brought together a number of seraphim who had otherwise written off humanity and the Shepherd as a whole. In that regard, she was successful as a Shepherd.

Rhiannon came out of her doldrums slowly, though she still didn't particularly get along with the other seraphim as much as Rose had hoped she would. She stayed firmly inside her vessel any time they had to fight hellions or monsters, and only came out once the coast was clear, but she was actually a much more efficient healer than Mikleo. They didn't even notice the toll her healing took until a full week after the first time they used her to heal after a tough fight with a tricky hellion; it wasn't until she had to try and heal multiple patients at once that they learned the limits of her skills. The trick was that she took any injury into herself, healing it almost instantly in her patient and thus suffering it herself. She then slowly healed the injury in herself. This was the most dominant reason why she was so adamant that she could not take part in battle, could only emerge once things were safe. She couldn't fight while she was nursing injuries. Because of her unique method of healing, she was cranky fairly often, because she was in a fair amount of pain for a long time after a healing session.

Immediately after learning the truth behind her healing, Edna and Mikleo both refused to allow her to touch either of them in a healer's manner. Both of them insisted on carrying any injuries they accrued on their own. Zaveid couldn't afford to be that way, since he was often the first line of defense for the team (as a very sturdy seraph with a very high threshold of pain tolerance, he tended to put himself in the way of danger for his smaller teammates) and Rose and Scout, as humans, were inherently more fragile, and so they got injured fairly regularly. As good as Mikleo's healing was, he couldn't really keep up with the frequency of their fights as they chased Bucephalus, and so having Rhiannon with them was handy, even if she got cranky with the pain. Lailah did her best to try and ease the tension amongst everyone, to strike a happy medium, but there was only so much she could do.

To her credit, Rhiannon didn't complain about her discomfort, except when her companions forgot that she was still recovering from something and expected her to keep up with them. But it did create tensions, because she was so uncomfortable so often, and she got snappy with her retorts when she was in pain. She was very prickly and disagreeable a lot of the time.

Late in spring, they got a hot tip about the Singing Phantom, from the normin network. Bucephalus had finally stopped migrating around, it seemed. He was loitering around Glaivend Basin, somewhere near a recent shallow crater. Based on the description, Rose had a sinking feeling that Bucephalus was hanging around where, years ago, she and Sorey had battled a newly-dragonized seraph named Tiamat.

As they were packing up to leave the inn they were at to head straight to the location that Bucephalus was reported to be staying, possibly waiting for them, Rose noticed that Rhiannon was unusually quiet and withdrawn.

The fire seraph was massaging her own arm, which was still convalescing from a broken bone injury that she'd healed in Scout last week. She looked like she was in a lot of pain.

“Are you going to be okay for this? When we find Bucephalus, we're probably going to need you. Do you need a few more days?”

“I don't know. I may.”

They had devised a plan to try and trap Bucephalus into an element-altering trap. Since there were two fire seraphim here, and the strongest mystic arte they had was Mikleo's armatized Aqua Limit, they were hoping to trap him between Rhiannon and Lailah, convert him temporarily to a fire hellion, and then Rose and Mikleo would armatize and shoot him, which they hoped would be enough to purify him in one go. Rhiannon stressed over and over that because Bucephalus had been a hellion for a long time – almost a decade now – he was very strong and had a very strong domain. He was highly resistant to seraphic artes and probably would be resistant to Mikleo's mystic arte, due to its high seraphic arte basis, but they hoped that the sheer force of being hit by an arrow of powerful water artes, while being weak to that element, would be enough.

But if Rhiannon was still convalescing, they were risking her safety (and possibly her life) if they tried to deploy her against a hellion like that. Rhiannon didn't move very quickly, especially when in pain. They were taking a great risk if they faced Bucephalus while she was hurting.

On the other hand, Edna pointed out, if there was as strong of a bond between Inkitatus and Rhiannon as the fire seraph insisted there was, then perhaps seeing her in pain, in the company of a human, might drive Bucephalus into a rage and cause it to make some mistakes. They could possibly use her ailment to trick the hellion into falling into a trap.

“I need you to tell me what you want to do. Are you willing to risk yourself in a fight, or would you rather wait? I think Bucephalus will actually wait for us this time, as long as we stay out of his range of detection. Once he knows we're around, he may either attack or flee, but until then, if we stay out of range, he may stay in place.”

“Please give me a few more days to decide. Let me know when we are within a day or so of where he is and I will tell you how much I think I can do. In the meantime, I need to rest.” She grimaced and fingered the site of injury. “By your leave, Shepherd.”

She always asked permission to withdraw into her vessel. None of the other seraphim did that more than incidentally (except Zaveid when he was being ironic) so it was a sign of the divide between them. As hard as they tried to make her feel welcome in their group, she was determined to maintain distance.

Zaveid was the one who pointed out what the fundamental problem was, after Rhiannon withdrew for the night into her vessel, while the rest of them gathered around a table for dinner. Rose commented about how sad it made her that Rhiannon was still not really a part of their group.

“You need to remember something, Rose. Rhiannon has always existed as part of a family group. Her entire life existence is built upon her place in a complex family environment. Her entire blessing, and now her very identity, is that of a mother. Heldalf ripped _all of that_ away from her. She has only Inkitatus left to cling to. Without him, she has no idea who she even is anymore. You talked about how fragile she is because of the trauma she endured, but I have a feeling you have no idea just how deep her trauma really goes. She's not a weakling, but she's had her entire world destroyed around her.”

“So,” Scout said reasonably, “why doesn't she just marry Inkitatus once he's been purified? If she needs a family to have an identity, she can just create a new one, can't she?”

Both Lailah and Zaveid looked utterly scandalized (which would have been amusing with the latter, given how hard it was to actually shock him, if it weren't for the fact that the context was lost on everyone else) and Lailah stammered briefly; “That won't work. She can't marry him.”

“Why not? He's a man and she's a woman, right? I mean, if she really needs a husband in order to have an identity, and they're strongly bonded, they must love each other, at least enough for that.”

“That's not what I said,” Zaveid said softly. “She doesn't need a husband, she needs a family. It doesn't even have to be her own, she just needs a whole family. I think Rose's suggestion that she become the Lord of the Land for Alisha's homestead is a very good idea, because she can adopt Alisha's family as her own, at least for a while.”

“Inkitatus is not a man,” Lailah said, before Zaveid elbowed her, _hard_ , in the ribs.

“What is he, then? A woman?”

“You will understand when we purify him,” Zaveid said.

“Oh, is he a dog seraph like Oysh?” Mikleo asked, clearly in jest.

“Yes, Mikky-boy, Inkitatus is clearly a dog seraph just like Oysh,” Zaveid said, uncharacteristically bitter and mocking. “Seriously, has it not occurred to all of you that maybe Rhiannon doesn't want you to judge Inkitatus until you meet him? Lailah and I have met him before, so we know about him, but you don't. There's a reason Rhiannon asked us to be quiet about him. Perhaps you should puzzle it out for yourselves.”

“Or you could just tell us so we don't have this argument,” Scout said, clearly annoyed.

“Your suggestion that she just marry again and create a new family is sort of insulting,” Edna said quietly. “As far as she is concerned, she is newly widowed. Even though they've been dead a long time now, she hasn't had time to mourn them until now. Would you seriously approach a human woman who has just buried her entire family, and demand to know why she hasn't married again? It's really no different with us seraphim. We have our own family definitions, and they are hard to replace.”

Scout had the decency to look ashamed. “I just thought... If her life depends on having a family, shouldn't she, you know, replace it? Make a new one? Instead of just giving up or being lost?”

Then Lailah spoke, and her voice was low, firm, and full of emotion; “Rose doesn't realize it yet, I don't think, because I only just recently realized it myself, but in taking Rhiannon on as we did, we have given her a priceless gift: we have given her a safe place, a haven for her grief. She has a pure vessel and a safe hiding place so she can focus on expressing her grief and alleviating it. She can mourn her losses without fear of hellionizing yet again. Any other seraph in her place would not be so lucky. This is why she is so eager and so willing to give herself to us for healing. It's the only way she can begin to repay us for giving her the peace and quiet she needs right now.”

Zaveid nodded in agreement; “She's got reason to fear hellionization. She knows what it's like, after all, and she knows she's weak to it. Even as much grief as any of us has been through in recent years, pales in comparison to what she's been through. We know our own share of pain and grief, but none of us has ever been _that_. If you've ever watched a seraph hellionize, you'll realize how terrible and horrifying it really is. We haven't been through it, but some of us know all too well how awful it really is.” 

Edna, unexpectedly, chimed in; “I never watched it happen, I only saw the before and after. But they can see and hear what goes on around them even as they are hellionized, yet are unable to control their actions, and they remember afterward. I would not want to be that way. I can think of nothing more horrifying than being unable to stop yourself from hurting something you love.” She visibly shuddered. For a moment, she looked incredibly small and vulnerable. “My brother spared me the pain of watching him change. I'm not sure I could have borne it, watching him deteriorate like that.”

“What are we going to do about Inkitatus when we purify him?” Mikleo's expression folded down in concentration. “If he's been a hellion for over a decade now, yet he hasn't dragonized, he may be susceptible to relapsing. Is he capable of becoming a Lord of the Land, and can he be trusted in the event that there's a lapse of prayer?”

“That remains to be seen,” Lailah said. “It depends in large part on Inkitatus himself, on what he wants.”

Abruptly, and to everyone's surprise (since she didn't do this sort of thing normally), Rhiannon manifested. She had clearly been listening in, as she settled herself into the semi-circle without even asking, and spoke into a sudden silence.

“It is my hope that you will keep him with you for a while. He will probably need a great deal of rehabilitation. Unlike me, he may be of actual use to you, as you don't have a void seraph with you and his abilities might actually help you a lot more than you realize. I realize that my life as it was before, is long over, and I will accept and adapt, but I need to know that Inky is safe before I can do so. Even if it is the end of our long partnership, so long as he is safe from dragonizing, I will accept it.”

“And what if he doesn't fit in with us?” Mikleo gave her his attention, but his tone was colder than normal. “You're asking us to take him on even if he doesn't work out with us?”

“I am asking no such thing. I think you will find that he is fairly easy to get along with.” She turned her eyes briefly to Zaveid. “If you can tolerate _him_ , I think you will find Inky to be agreeable.”

Zaveid just laughed at that; “Still haven't forgiven me after all these years, huh?”

Rhiannon ignored that comment. “Inky can be a handful, but he is charismatic.”

Mikleo was having none of this; “Why don't you tell us more about him?”

“Mikleo,” Lailah said firmly. “Let it be. We will see for ourselves soon enough.”

“Thank you,” Rhiannon said softly, and inclined her head in a form of bow to Rose. “My apologies for interrupting uninvited. By your leave, I will withdraw for the night.”

 

* * *

 

Two nights later, as they settled into their room after dinner, they were surprised by an unexpected visitor. They were settling in for the night, and Rose was preparing to take an evening bath, when suddenly Zaveid said, “We have a visitor.”

There was a scritching at the window, and Mikleo opened it cautiously. Into their room crawled a green-furred normin.

“Greetings Shepherd!” The normin said cheerfully. “I've been waiting for you.”

He proceeded, in the usual normin way, to explain how he came by his information (before even revealing his information) in such a round about way that Rose quickly lost her patience.

“What are you here to tell me? Is the Singing Phantom nearby?”

Unperturbed, the normin nodded; “Yes, milady Shepherd. He's no more than a few kilometers away, I reckon. If you listen real hard, you should be able to hear him. He seems to be waiting for something.”

Zaveid went to the window and pushed it open further, leaning out. There was a strained silence as he concentrated on listening and the others did their best to be quiet.

“Yeah, I hear him now. It's faint, so he's not that close, but he's close enough to hear.”

“So we'll encounter him tomorrow,” Rose said.

“If we go looking for him, yes. He's close enough now. So the question now becomes, are we ready to take him on tomorrow, or do we need a few more days to prepare?”

Silence between them all, as Rose prepared to ask Rhiannon to manifest and talk to them. Then the little normin spoke.

“Begging your pardon, milady, but I wanted to say something. I've seen this Phantom before, several times. He comes by here a lot. I get the feeling that he's looking for something. But he looks different now. He's starting to grow wings. I don't think he can fly with them, probably won't be able to fly for a long time yet, but he's growing them. They're pretty obvious now. He's starting to look a lot less like a hellhorse and a lot more like...” He trailed off. He didn't need to finish that sentence. They all knew what he was trying to say, anyway. 

Bucephalus was starting to dragonize.

The news served as a summons to Rhiannon, who manifested without a moment's hesitation. “We have to go to him first thing in the morning.” Although her words were commanding, her voice was pleading. “Please, Shepherd, I'm begging you, do _not_ worry about me; save my Inkitatus. This is why I joined you, to help you save him. Don't stall now.” 

Rose reached out and put a hand on her arm; “We will do exactly that, but I don't want to risk your safety. He's been this way all this time; one or two extra days won't do any harm.”

“I will be just fine. I promise, I won't be a hindrance.”

Rose looked over at Lailah. They all knew that Rhiannon was still aching from Scout's broken arm, but her adamant insistence that they continue on without regard for her safety made this complicated. Rose didn't want to make the wrong decision.

Slowly, Lailah nodded; “We must do as she asks, Rose. I believe that I learned my lesson years ago, with Dezel. If Rhiannon is determined to do this, and is willing to risk her very life, then we should do what we can to help her. She is not above breaking her Sub Lord pact with me in order to pursue her own agenda.” She looked at Rhiannon and her expression was very sad. “I do not ever want that guilt on my conscience again.”

Mikleo stood up from where he'd been sitting; “Rhiannon, please, let me help you, just this once. If only to mitigate the risk to you. Let me do something about your vulnerability.”

Rhiannon hesitated, and then she sighed. “Fine. Just this once. Once this is over tomorrow, you will _not_ be touching me again.” She sat down on the floor near where he was standing. “Make it quick, though.” 

“Don't exhaust yourself,” Rose said as she decided to go take her bath now. “I need all of you at full strength tomorrow. Oh, and thank you, Momo,” she added, looking at the normin.

“You're very welcome, Shepherd! I'll be on my way, then.”

 

* * *

 

The next morning dawned surprisingly warm, even given the time of year. Rhiannon was groggy from a poor night's rest, and she snapped irritably at anyone who spoke to her. She was also very antsy and didn't want to wait for everyone to be fully ready to go.

It took them nearly an hour to be ready to leave, because they had to be ready for combat at any time. The fact that they were several days' travel away from the part of Glaivend Basin where they'd fought Tiamat all those years ago, suggested that Bucephalus was traveling toward them, so he could be en route to their position even as they were headed toward him.

Once they were set up and ready to go, the seraphim all retreated into their vessel, Zaveid activated some windstepping to help speed their travel, and they set off.

The going became a bit slow as the heat, surprisingly sweltering and oppressive, made travel difficult because it created fatigue. To make things frustrating, although Bucephalus wasn't supposed to be more than a couple of kilometers away, they walked for several hours with no sign of him.

They paused around noon so that Rose and Scout could rest their feet, have a quick lunch and thorough drink of water, and to reassess their situation.

However, as they were preparing to set off again, Zaveid put a hand out; “Does anyone else hear that?”

Almost instantly, Edna put a hand to the ground; “Something is approaching. I can feel it.”

Fearful anticipation reigned as the five seraphim gathered into a tight cluster around their Shepherd and Squire. They could feel a corrupted domain now, though it wasn't as powerful as some domains that Rose had dealt with before.

Then, from around an outcropping of rock stepped a dark, flowing shadow that resolved itself into a large, horse-like beast.

Bucephalus, the Singing Phantom, their target for over a year now, had found them, and had caught them unawares.

As Momo, the normin, had reported last night, they saw evidence that the hellion was starting to dragonize. His ox-like head had a shining row of dark scales down the center of the face, surrounding a short horn that protruded from the middle of the forehead, and a pair of small, scaly wings arched off the shoulders. Black flames coated the hooves and dark steam puffed out of the nostrils.

This was an enraged, berserked hellion that had no pacifism left in it. It was focused on attacking and harming them.

“Well,” Zaveid murmured as he put up a thin wind screen, “at least we don't have to chase him any more.”

Bucephalus lowered its great head and aimed its horn straight at Rose. Then, with a metallic roar of fury, it charged. With wild abandon, it barreled toward the whole group, who scattered at the last minute, like bowling pins.

“Inkitatus!” Rhiannon's voice carried over the din of the impromptu battle.

Because they'd had no time to plan or prepare for this fight, they had no plan of action and no time to lay a trap to alter its element to fire. Scout and Zaveid armatized immediately to try and draw it into a chase, but Bucephalus was having none of it. It seemed to hone in on Rhiannon.

Rose shouted to Mikleo to keep Rhiannon safe, and then she and Edna armatized. Edna's rock abilities would boost her own defenses, and she knew from personal experience that this thing could kick really hard, so she would appreciate all the defense she could get.

_'Rose,'_ Edna said urgently from within the armatus, _'something is wrong with her. I think I know what's going on, and she needs to be protected.'_

The two fire seraphim were trying to lay a fire trap, but with the chaos going on around them, it was clear that Rhiannon couldn't focus on her task. She was watching the other two pairs trying to kite Bucephalus around the battlefield, to keep it away from them.

“What's wrong? What's going on?”

_'She is seeing him in this berserked form, and wondering if he's too far gone. I've been there. I know what she's going through. She's not able to focus because she's going to be going through the stages of grief in rapid succession.'_

Then, in a flash of weakness, Edna dropped her guard and let Rose see into her own memories. This sort of thing was only possible during armatization because it was the only time that human and seraph were enmeshed with each other for such a telepathic connection.

_She saw a great hulking black monster lurking before her, staring at her with gleaming, darkly illuminated eyes, eyes of maddened fury and hunger. It was a beast of incomprehensible power, corrupted beyond all redemption. A powerful dragon, aligned to the earth element, born of what had once been an earth seraph. The fact that it was_ here, _meant that..._

“ _B-brother? No... Is this true?” A rising surge of grief as realization hit her. Her beloved brother was beyond saving. “Is that really you, Eizen? Have you... did you really...?”_

_She felt so sick. Paralyzed, even. Rooted to the spot. Her beloved Eizen, gone forever, and she had no heart in her to do the honorable thing you did with a dragon, if she could even do it. He was standing there, dragonized, staring at her, and she wanted nothing more than to sit down and cry. “Brother, why? Why did this happen?”_

_The great beast, a gargantuan black dragon with cloud-rending wings, tilted its head at her words. Its eyes became less maddened and it shook its head as if disoriented. Her voice must have reached it, because the hostility in its posture evaporated. Then it opened its great mouth and roared, before launching skyward and flying away._

“ _Eizen, you still remember me? Is that why you came here? To show me what you've become?”_

_Or maybe he came here because the last vestiges of his very self as Eizen were centered on her, and so that was all he knew. Maybe it was the only way he could resist a dragon's urges to lay waste to the world around it. If that was the case, there was only one thing she could do for him..._

Rose came lurching back into her own body.

_'I know that paralysis, Rose. I've been there. Even if he's not a dragon yet, she's been through this before, and I'm certain it doesn't get any easier. She won't be able to help us. She's literally nothing to us right now but a lure for him, but he may kill her if she gives him an opening. If you value her life, we can't worry about a trap; we have to hit him with everything we've got and hope it works.'_

Rose sighed as she and Edna, along with Zaveid and Scout, tried to corral Bucephalus again and herd it back. “All right, so we abandon the trap plan and hit him with everything we've got. Then what? What if that kills him?”

_'It shouldn't. Lailah's power of purification should kick in and purify him before you can kill him. How many times have you ever killed a hellion by hitting it too hard?'_

She had a point, of course, but Rose was still worried. They hadn't come all this way, just to kill Inkitatus in front of Rhiannon. For all that the fire seraph said she was prepared for that eventuality, if only to spare her beloved “Inky” the indignity of dragonization, every single one of them knew that if it all fell apart now and they had to kill him, it would break Rhiannon. They'd end up stuck with her for a long time until her grief subsided, because she'd be too likely to hellionize again in her despair.

_'Still don't have faith in your Shepherd abilities, after all this time, Rose? Tsk tsk.'_ Edna gave her the telepathic equivalent of shaking the finger at her.

As was the nature of their fights these days, everything went all pear-shaped while Rose's attention was diverted. Suddenly, she saw that Scout was flailing his arms frantically, gesturing wildly. When she followed his line of sight, she saw what had his attention.

Rhiannon was isolated with Bucephalus, and there was a momentary lull between them. She was standing, transfixed, in front of him, reaching slowly toward him, as if unable to believe what she was seeing. Bucephalus was primed to strike her down. It was exactly as Edna had feared.

“Rhiannon, no! Get away from him! He'll kill you!” Rose screamed, while simultaneously she was raging inside. _How stupid can she be? She watched him hellionize, and she knows he's dragonizing, but he's not even a drake yet. He's in the earliest stages! Why is she so thunderstruck?!_

Then, very suddenly, there was a crackling roar of flames as a giant firewall swept over both seraph and hellion, engulfing them both. The flames then consolidated and contracted, folding down around Bucephalus.

“What was that?”

_'I think that might have been the trap. I think Rhiannon made_ herself _into the trap.'_

“Now, Rose!” She heard Mikleo shout as Edna removed their armatus.

Deciding to trust what was left of their plan, Rose activated the water armatus and surrendered herself to Mikleo's power. She felt the torrential chill of icy strength as his power cloaked her. Reaching for the bowstring, she drew back and let him do the aiming. Then, as she willed with all her heart that the shot would work, she released the Aqua Limit.

The shot landed squarely on the swirling flames and there was a loud hissing sound as the fire and water warred with each other, resulting in massive amounts of steam. Zaveid called up a gale of wind to blow the steam away from them, to keep them from getting scalded by it.

As the steam cleared away, Rhiannon could be seen, blown backward onto the ground. Also on the ground was a sizable black lump. It was far too large to be human-shaped.

Cradling her sore arm, Rhiannon was struggling to her knees. “Inkitatus? Are you all right now?” Her voice was imploring as she shuffled over to the motionless form on the ground and prodded it gently.

As Rose and her seraphim (and her Squire) gathered around the two on the ground, Inkitatus roused from his stupor and started to stir, and she beheld him in his true form. Suddenly, hilariously,  _everything_ became clear.

Everything. From the vague references of Rhiannon's non-sexual partnership with Inkitatus, to Zaveid's utter outrage at the idea of Rhiannon marrying Inkitatus, and everything in between. Even the form of Bucephalus suddenly made sense.

Inkitatus wasn't a human-form seraph at all. He had probably never been human in shape.

He was a  _horse seraph_ . He was shaped like, built like, and behaved like a horse. Just as Oysh was a dog, Inkitatus was a horse.

The hilarity of everything hit Rose all at once, and she couldn't stop herself from doubling over in relieved laughter.

“What's so funny?” Zaveid came to her side and gave her a look that was both confused and amused.

“I get it. I finally understand.”

“Understand what?”

“The whole thing. The reasons you wouldn't talk about him, and why you were so scandalized at the idea of her marrying him. I finally get it and I'm so relieved.” She grasped him by the wrist and tugged; “Come with me. Let's go see how he is.”

Rhiannon was cradling the horse's head in her lap when they arrived, and the creature had shifted around a little bit, but still made no effort to try and rise to his feet. Up close, he proved to look surprisingly normal and mundane. Where human-shaped seraphim were often distinctive and stood out to a trained eye (in part due to their tendency toward particolored hair), Inkitatus was very plain and looked like a normal horse. Rose wasn't sure she'd ever have noticed he was a seraph if he was standing in a herd, at least not unless someone with her (who had low resonance) noted a gap in the herd.

She was familiar with horses, after her time with the Sparrowfeathers. As a merchant group, they had dealt in horseflesh for a while, before it became too cost prohibitive, so in that time she had learned how to tell quality horseflesh. This had served her even after they stopped buying and selling horses, because it helped her to keep the guild supplied with good cart horses. By all accounts that she could measure with, Inkitatus was a decent horse.

He was completely jet black, with no white markings anywhere. His muzzle was narrower than she was used to, but she had seen that on fancy saddle-horses before. He was covered in mud and dirt, of course, and his coat was shaggy and unkempt, and his mane and tail were full of mats, but he seemed to have no physical maladies that she could detect.

As Rose and Zaveid approached, Inkitatus had one eye trained on her, and clearly he noticed her cloak.

_'We have a Shepherd again?'_ The voice that spoke in her head (in much the same way that Oysh, and other animal-form seraphim who did not have articulate mouths, spoke) was very calm and had a music-like cadence to it.

“Greetings, Inkitatus,” she said with a smile as she crouched down beside Rhiannon. “Yes, I am Shepherd Rose. How are you feeling?”

_'Thank you for stopping me,'_ the seraph replied. He sounded so tired and resigned. She could only imagine how he was feeling right now. Surely he remembered what he'd done as a hellion. 

“That doesn't answer how you're feeling, sport,” Zaveid said.

_'I am exhausted. I can barely move. I can't even move enough to get out of Rhi's grasp. I know what she's doing and I'm powerless to stop her.'_

“What are you doing, Rhiannon?” Rose looked at her secondary fire seraph.

Rhiannon ignored her and continued to gently stroke Inkitatus' face.

_'She is trying to absorb my fatigue,'_ Inkitatus said.

There was a distinct cracking of knuckles as Zaveid flexed his hands. “I'm your brute, Rose. You give the word, I'll fix this.”

It wasn't the first time she'd have used Zaveid's tremendous physical strength like that. But it would be the first she'd used it on her own Sub Lord if she gave him the command. She would do it, if she had to, and she knew Zaveid would willingly follow her order (he had just outright said as much, in fact). However, there was someone she needed to gain permission from before she ordered Zaveid to get rough with Rhiannon.

She wasn't disappointed, either: Lailah approached and intervened before violence could take hold. “Rhiannon, back away from him. I'm ordering you as your Prime Lord. Don't make me do something I'll regret.”

“Then don't interrupt me,” Rhiannon said bitterly. “I told you, once Inky is purified, there is no need for me to be a Sub Lord. Sunder my contract if you want, I don't care.”

Inkitatus grunted loudly and then groaned. Then, with a tremendous effort, he pushed her away and rolled his whole body so that he was laying on his other side. Before she could reach him again, Zaveid restrained her.

“Let go of me,” she snarled. “I have to help him.”

“He doesn't want it. Your help is unwelcome. He just pushed you away. Learn to take a clue, sister.”

“Here's the thing none of you are understanding. He needs to stand up soon. He can't lay here for days trying to recover his strength. If I take away his fatigue so he can stand, even if I can no longer move, he can carry me. But none of us can carry him.”

“He still didn't give you permission to do that. No matter your reasoning, whatever your intentions, he still doesn't want you to do that.”

_'Good gracious, Rhi, give me a little credit here. I don't need_ that _much time to recover! Maybe an hour or so, and I should be good enough.'_

Mikleo knelt down beside the horse; “Is there anything I can do for you? I'm a healer too, though different from her. I was trained by Asclepius.”

_'I'm fine. I don't need much, just some rest and a chance to get my bearings.'_

“Well, let me know if you need anything. I'm here to help you.”

There was a moment where Rose thought someone would make a snide comment about that, but Inkitatus just tiredly flicked his tail.

_'I'll be fine, little one. But thank you.'_

Mikleo bristled slightly (and visibly) at the “little one” comment, but it was fairly clear that Inkitatus didn't mean anything by it.

 

* * *

 

It took more than an hour for Inkitatus to get back on his feet. He was a lot weaker than he wanted to admit, and it was a long time before he had the strength to stand. During that period of tense idleness, they learned a great deal about him, because he was more than willing to talk to his new companions. He told them as much as he could remember from his time as a hellion, which wasn't a whole lot considering it was nearly twelve years that he'd been hellionized.

He knew about Praetor and Parill's fate, as it turned out, and while he expressed sorrow at their deaths, because he was a horse, he couldn't show it much. While he hadn't known about Heldalf being dead now for over six years, he was relieved to learn that there was no longer a Lord of Calamity.

They learned that while he was hellionized, Inkitatus had had moments of clarity and lucidity, where he was in some control of himself.  He couldn't reverse his transformation and easily lost control of himself again during those periods, whenever he encountered another hellion, but he had brief, frequent periods where he was in some level of control of himself and was thus able to continue searching for something that he had been searching for over the last century. 

Scout was fascinated with Inkitatus, and in a strange twist, the horse seemed interested in him. Once Inky was on his feet, shaking dust out of a matted and grossly overgrown coat, he started off by nuzzling Rhiannon tenderly, nickering to her. The two of them shared a tender, sad moment.

Then the next person he nuzzled was, of all people, Scout. The boy laughed joyously at the sensation of being nuzzled by a seraphic horse. After that, the horse came before Rose and bowed his head low in thanks, before nuzzling her with his soft horsey nose and puffing a gentle breath on her cheek. _'I owe you, Shepherd Rose, for saving me. If you wish me to join you on your journey, I will do so. I only ask that you help me acquire the Obsidian Knife, so that I may better serve you.'_

Once he was on his feet, it became clear to Rose that he was not as large as the horses she was familiar with. He was smaller than a cart horse, smaller than some saddle horses. Nevertheless, he was larger than a pony and thus large enough to carry multiple riders if necessary. Underneath the dirt and matted hair (she'd never seen a horse in such a sorry state), he was completely mundane, nothing at all in his appearance to suggest that he was a powerful seraph. She had met void seraphim before, and they were no different from the standard elemental seraphim, other than to be a little blander and have a slightly different color scheme to their appearance. But Inkitatus was utterly mundane to look at. 

“Inky,” Rhiannon said softly, as the horse attempted to shake the dust out of his coat, “I'm sorry, but our partnership is at an end. Without the others, you and I don't have a foundation, and...” She stopped briefly, noticeably to dry her eyes and work around a sob in her throat. “And... Shepherd Rose has offered me a post as a Lord of the Land to a friend of hers. A family, I'm told. A good place for a fire seraph like me. I love you, Inky, and I will miss you terribly, but I must do the right thing.”

_'I understand. This was always an eventuality, after all. There was never a question of if but rather when our partnership would have to end. You will, of course, allow me to visit you whenever I can?'_

“I would be devastated if you _didn't_ visit me every chance you got.” She wiped at her eyes, her shoulders shaking visibly with her sobs. “You're all I have left right now.”

_'Please do not cry so, Rhi. You have known all these centuries that we would someday part. Once I've found what I'm looking for, our partnership cannot survive because you are not suited to a Sub Lord's role, and I am not suited to a stationary post like that of a Lord of the Land. Our partnership was never intended to last forever.'_

“What are you searching for?” Mikleo asked, just as Rhiannon interjected.

“Have you found it yet, Inky?”

_'I have a lead on it, but no, I have not yet found it. As for what I'm searching for, it's the only Divine Artefact still in existence for Void seraphim like me. With it, I would be able to join a Shepherd properly, and perhaps one day become a Prime Lord. It is the Obsidian Knife and it is not enshrined anywhere. It is carried by guardian seraphim, but the rumors are that it was lost when the Lord of Calamity hellionized the last guardian of it. It is believed to have been dropped and buried here in this Basin.'_

That would explain, Rose realized, why the Singing Phantom was so common a sight around Glaivend Basin.

“So, do I understand you correctly, Inkitatus, that you will become my Sub Lord? We'll be glad to have you.”

_'If you wish it, yes. And you may call me Inky, if it is easier.'_

“Lailah? Would you do the honors?”

The Prime Lord smiled brightly and put a hand on the horse's forehead; “All right. Are you ready, Inkitatus?”

_'I am.'_

“Here let our pact be forged, that my unquavering incandescence may be as thy purification. Shouldst thou accept this burden, recite aloud thy True Name.” A bead of light swirled out and expanded, encompassing the two seraphim and the Shepherd. Rose felt something within her heart flutter slightly as the seraphic vessel that she was, shifted to accommodate the new seraph.

_'Keimavus Rilov.'_ The horse dipped his head beneath her hand and then pushed forward, pressing his soft nose against Rose's cheek. _'It means Silent Hooves, if you are wondering. I should add that you cannot armatize with me yet, not until I find that Obsidian Knife. And because there is no Shrine of Trials for void seraphim, there will never be a Mystic Arte for my armatus. But I can help you in other ways. I think you will find me quite useful.'_

Rose rubbed his broad forehead; “Welcome to my team, Inky. I'm honored to have you with me and my other seraphim.”

_'A pleasure to serve you, Shepherd Rose. I confess to having missed serving a Shepherd. It's been a while. In the interest of transparency, let me also warn you of this: I do not fight well. I can boost your abilities more than I can fight on my own. My blessing is one of amplification. But I will do what I can to help you. I ask that you keep that in mind before deploying me in a fight. Now, if you don't mind, I could use some grooming, and then we can begin searching for the Obsidian Knife.'_

Lailah shook her head; “I don't have any problem with the grooming request, Inkitatus, but before we can help you find that Artefact, I think we need to escort Rhiannon to her new permanent home. We don't know how long it will take to find this Obsidian Knife, and she has made it clear that she no longer wants to be a Sub Lord. The sooner she is established in her new home, the better it will be for her.”

 

* * *

 

It took a couple of hours to groom the poor creature. Rose and Scout did most of the work on the coat, while Rhiannon detangled the tail. There was no saving his mane, so they had to cut it down almost to a buzz.

Mikleo called up a few spouts of water to douse Inkitatus in an attempt to rinse his coat of the worst of the dust and dirt, but without proper grooming tools and soap, they weren't very successful. Rose had to get out her own hair brush to try and get the worst of the mats out.

Through it all, Inkitatus kept attempting to lighten the mood by cracking jokes. The problem was, his jokes were almost as bad as Lailah's. Rose wasn't sure if it was that he was genuinely trying to entertain them, or if he was trying to deflect his own embarrassment, but the jokes did get a little tiresome after a while.

Eventually, they got him straightened out about as much as they were going to, lacking as they were the proper tools. By that point, they were all tired – especially Rose and Scout – and agreed to head back to the inn that they had stayed at the night before. To Rose's surprise, as they turned to the direction they needed to head in, Inkitatus stepped in front of her and stood broadside to her, turning to look at her expectantly.

_'Climb on.'_ It wasn't exactly a command, but he said it fully expecting them to do as he said. It was also said so utterly cheerfully that it completely bewildered her.

Scout's expression perked up significantly at that. “We can ride you?”

_'I am a horse, so yes.'_

“That should be amusing,” Zaveid said with a smirk. “You're a seraph and they're human. If another human sees this setup, they're going to be so confused! Rose and Scout, floating through the air! I mean, there's reverence for the Shepherd and all, but I think people tend to get a little freaked out when they see something unexplainable like that.”

_'There are no other humans around here for a long distance.'_

“Inky has the ability to amplify and extend seraphic abilities,” Rhiannon said. Then she cast a very meaningful look over at Mikleo.

Edna was the first to pick up on her meaning. “So you're saying that Horseface here can amplify and extend Meebo's hidey bubble thingy?”

_'You'll have to explain that joke to me, Edna. What hidey bubble?'_

“She's talking about my Spectral Cloak,” Mikleo said with some resignation. “When I use it, I can hide my Shepherd – and the Squire, if he's close enough – from all detection. However, it has a very short time limit. I can't maintain it for more than thirty seconds before it withers. And even if I dismantle and recast it, it still doesn't last very long before I become too fatigued to continue. I think, if I was pressured by situations, I could get us about five minutes of invisibility before I became too tired to continue. I don't see how you can amplify and extend that to any useful manner.”

_'I remember the Spectral Cloak. Give me time and I could learn to help you manipulate it. In the mean time, allow me to help you with a different sort of cloak.'_

There was a sense of a rush of air and the chill of ice  as an aura (different from a domain) came to settle around them.  Rose didn't see anything different, but she felt slightly different.

_'This will make you unnoticeable to those with low resonance, as long as you do not pass too close to them and give them a reason to notice you. If they have resonance high enough to see through this, they will also be able to see me. It plays a trick on their perceptions rather than their sight.'_

“A seraphic perception shield,” Lailah said appreciatively. “So you figured out how to do it?”

_'I am a void seraph. I can do things that you elemental seraphim can't. I call this the Mirror Veil, and I can maintain it for up to an hour right now. With some help, I can extend that over time. And yes, Lailah, I learned a few things over the years._ He _may be the first, but is not the last to learn to do it.'_

_He_? Rose blinked but didn't ask. Lailah looked supremely uncomfortable.

“I didn't know about this seraphic shield thing!” Rhiannon protested. “When did you learn that, Inky?”

Zaveid gently put a hand to the horse's forehead; “Inkitatus here is quite old, you know. He's one of the oldest seraphim here. Pretty sure he's a lot older than you, Rhiannon.”

“Yes,” Rhiannon said bitingly, “I know he is much older than me. I'm not that old, Zaveid. Don't ask me my age, but most of you are older than me.”

Rose remembered hearing that Lailah, Edna and Zaveid were all very, very old. She was still amused at the fact that until Scout joined them, Mikleo had been the youngest of them all. She was convinced that that fact (that he would no longer be the “baby”) had had some influence in his acceptance of the Squire, though he avidly denied it.

“He's not older than me,” the wind seraph said, with a smile that Rose could only describe as ancient. He looked so much older than normal for just a split second. “But you all knew that.”

“I don't think anyone is as old as you, Grampveid,” Edna said tartly, opening her parasol and turning away from him. “So are we all riding on Horseface?”

_'You can ride inside the vessel, small one. I think only the Shepherd and her Squire should actually sit on me. But come, let us get going. The sooner we reach an inn, the sooner I can rest properly.'_

Agreeing with this sentiment, the other seraphim withdrew into their vessel, though Zaveid stuck around long enough to give Rose and Scout each a boost up onto Inky's back  (since neither of them was good enough to jump aboard without the aid of a saddle's stirrups). . Then he too went dormant into Rose.

Inkitatus stepped forward at a stiff-jointed, bone-rattling trot. While Rose grasped desperately at what remained of his mane, Scout clung to her waist and did his best to not groan at every jolting stride. She was just beginning to regret the decision to ride this beast, when suddenly he seemed to stumble, jostling the two riders around (Scout's forehead collided with the back of Rose's head in the whiplash and she heard him swear because of it) and then suddenly they were gliding along at a swift, smooth canter. 

The difference in gaits was astounding. Rose had not really ridden horses much in the past ten or more years, only once in a while, and so she'd forgotten how nice it was to be on a horse with a fluid gait like this.

_'Apologies for the discomfort. I shall endeavor to make it less uncomfortable in the future.'_

“How appropriate,” Scout said with a tired chuckle, gesturing ahead to the westering sun that was setting fire to the horizon as it prepared to sink into twilight. “We're literally riding off into the sunset, Rose.”

“That is so cliché,” she retorted, “you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

“Joke's on you,” he replied, pinching her waist, “because I'm not. Admit it, that was a better joke than anything Lailah has said in the past two weeks!” She proceeded to ram her elbow back, digging it into him, and he just laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thanks to my friend Char (@katamarii) for helping me with the True Names of my two OC seraphim. And for being a beta reader and sounding board and an all around great person to talk to and flail at.


	5. Void

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose parts ways with Rhiannon and begins to build her relationship with her new void seraph, Inkitatus. Inky, however, has some secrets he'd rather not talk about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is running much longer than I expected it to, so I have extended it to seven chapters, and it may run longer than that. I don't really know.

The journey back to the heart of Hyland took them longer than it probably should have, partly because they actually stopped by Rayfalke for a day. Inkitatus asked for the detour, though he refused to say why. Edna gave her permission, so they took the detour. He had to withdraw into Rose during the climb up the Spiritcrest's face, because he wasn't surefooted enough to navigate some of the narrow passes. Rose and Scout, with Edna to guide them, scaled the mountain, to the monument near the summit that Edna had built to enshrine her brother's memory. Then, the horse seraph manifested in front of the monolith and stood quietly, motionlessly, before it for a fairly long time, his head lowered in respect.

Surprisingly, Edna tolerated all of this without demanding answers out of him. In fact, she seemed oddly tolerant and accommodating to the void seraph. Rose found herself wondering if for some reason, Inkitatus reminded the earth seraph of her lost brother in some way.

_'I think I remember what he looked like,'_ Inkitatus said after a long silence.  _'However, my memories are fuzzy at best, and it doesn't help that spending over a decade as a hellion plays brutal havoc with your ability to remember things.'_ He flicked his tail sharply, lashing it into the breeze.  _'I honestly never made the connection, Edna. Even when I saw that dragon, I never guessed it was Eizen. It was always the Rayfalke dragon to me.'_

Rose blinked. “Wait, you knew Eizen?”

_'Well, “knew” is a bit strong of a word, my Shepherd,'_ the horse replied.  _'I met him a few times. Never here at Rayfalke, mind you. Far, far away from here. I have seen the Rayfalke dragon, while traveling with Rhi and Par, when we came by Rayfalke and saw him flying over the peak. But I had no idea who the dragon was, never made the connection. In fact, I didn't know of Eizen's connection to Rayfalke in the first place; I don't recall him ever mentioning it. Is it weird that I can remember his voice more than I can remember any words he ever said?'_

Well, Rose figured, that explained at least one thing: it explained why Edna had allowed Inkitatus to insist upon coming up here to pay respects to Eizen, without demanding details from him. Somehow, she knew that he had a history with her brother, distant and vague though that history was.

Edna and Inkitatus were fairly adamant that they had never met before, did not know each other previously. Inkitatus had only ever met Eizen separately, and had never met the territorial seraph of Rayfalke. Edna had never paid attention to nomadic seraphim who passed through her territory, she said, so long as they didn't stay too long and didn't interfere with her territory. (Clearly, this wasn't exactly true, since she had a long history with Zaveid, but it seemed that she and Zaveid shared their history together through Eizen, long before the latter's tragic fate. Also, before becoming a Sub Lord, the only reason Zaveid ever traveled to Rayfalke was to try and kill the dragonized Eizen, as per a promise he'd made to Eizen long ago.)

However, wanting to pay respects to Eizen was a quick way to get on Edna's good side.

Now that she thought about it, Rose realized that Inkitatus had charmed his way into everyone's good graces, and very quickly. He was intelligent and friendly enough for Mikleo to enjoy conversations with him. Lailah and Zaveid were familiar with him on a much older level and got along with him well. Even Edna seemed to like him; at the very least, she insulted him the least of any of the seraphim.

Scout in particular was utterly taken in; he was already talking about learning more about how to care for horses, even though Inkitatus had said that since he wasn't a normal horse, a lot of that really didn't matter. In a way, it felt like Inky and Scout were bonding more with each other than either of them were with Rose. And she wasn't foolish enough to miss the subtle hint therein.

Inky had mentioned at one point that the main thing that was holding him back from taking the final steps to become a Prime Lord was his lack of a Divine Artefact as a conduit for armatus. Once he had the Obsidian Knife, he believed that it wouldn't be very long before he could undertake the mysterious oath that bestowed the Power of Purification upon a seraph. (The trick therein seemed to be getting Lailah to tell him what he needed to do in order to start that process.)

In other words, Rose had a feeling that her new Sub Lord could one day soon (if it didn't take too long) become Scout's Prime Lord. She wasn't entirely sure how she felt about that, either; she had grown used to having her young Squire there at her heels all the time, and had genuinely expected to have him there for several more years. Firmly, she did her best to set aside thoughts of that, to not let herself be consumed with emotions she wasn't ready for.

She was brought back to the present by the sound of some rock dust falling near her. Looking around, she found her familiar seraphim gazing expectantly at her (well, except for Edna, who looked slightly bored, for some reason, and was looking out at the horizon). Inky was standing a distance away, gazing down the mountain vista, with Scout and Rhiannon on either side of him.

“Are we ready to go back down?” She asked.

_'Not quite. Allow me one last offering?'_

“All right.”

What came from the horse was, by now, not a surprise. They had learned fairly quickly that Inkitatus (much like his hellion form) had a penchant for singing in the evenings. Sometimes he sang bawdy ditties more suited to a tavern, and sometimes he sang complicated ballads. Each evening, he sang a short nocturne in the ancient tongue, and he said it was a blessing to the setting sun and rising moon. However, he didn't bother to sing an aubade in the morning to the rising sun and setting moon.

_'That belongs to someone else,'_ was his answer when asked.  _'Nocturnes are my thing. Aubades were hers.'_ (He never said who “she” was, only confirmed that it was  _not_ Rhiannon.)

Standing at the summit of Rayfalke, they all listened as Inkitatus offered up a song in the ancient tongue. It wasn't a nocturne, but it felt like a sad song, probably a tribute of some sort. Rose didn't know anywhere near enough of the ancient tongue (despite Mikleo trying desperately for these past six years to teach her) and so she didn't know the words to the song, but she did see that the other seraphim all steadily grew more quiet and morose as the song progressed. A lament of some sort.

Before long, the singing died away. Inkitatus lashed his tail with finality (another quirk of his that Rose was beginning to pick up on) and turned carefully around.  _'Very well, my companions, I think I am done here. Thank you for indulging me. I am ready to go whenever you are.'_

 

* * *

 

 

The gates at the edge of the Diphda estate were such a welcome sight to Rose. She felt a grand smile beginning to form on her face as they drew near to the boundary of what would be Rhiannon's new home, and would also be a nice place to stop and rest for a few days now. She was really looking forward to visiting with Alisha and Sergei again.

All six seraphim were manifest and walking with her as they came close to the gates. (Well, technically, Edna wasn't walking; she'd convinced Inkitatus to let her ride on his back and was sitting primly side-saddle style on his shoulders, her parasol open above her, like they had just come out of some fancy old style painting.)

There were no guards stationed at this gate today, so Rose and her companions walked right in.

_'I like the feel of this place. I think you'll be right at home here, Rhi,'_ Inkitatus said, picking up his hooves in a spritely prance. There was the faintest tinkering of hooves on pavement as he pranced.

“I hope so,” Rhiannon said, putting a hand on the horse's shoulder.

Once inside the boundaries, Rose looked around eagerly, and found signs of people she knew. She saw a cluster of men on the training grounds, sparring, while a familiar bulky form walked the perimeter, observing.

The others followed her willingly as she altered trajectory and took them over to the sparring ring. About halfway there, the familiar figure watching from the perimeter was alerted to their approach and turned to them, raising an arm in greeting.

“Zaveid,” she said to her wind seraph, who was already grinning salaciously at her. After all, the several guards sparring in the ring, and the man observing their progress, were all shirtless in this heat. “No comments from the peanut gallery, all right?”

“Oh, fine,” he chuckled in response. “It's not like he can hear me.”

As they drew close, Sergei left his post and came to them. “Greetings, Shepherd Rose! It's good to see you! What brings you to our home? Have you come to visit us?”

“It's good to see you too, Sergei,” she said. “Yes, Scout and I have come for a brief visit and we may have something Alisha has been asking for. If you don't mind, I'd like to speak with her soon.”

Sergei made a gesture and called someone over, a man he then sent off to get Lady Alisha. As the runner dashed off, he looked over at his other men; “All right, take ten minutes. Get some water and have a rest. Then we will be swapping weapons and rotating partners. I shall escort our glorious Shepherd inside in the meantime. At ease, men.”

Once that was done, he set aside the sword he was holding, and picked up a tunic, pulling it on. Then turned to Rose and Scout, gesturing for them come with him, which they did. Inkitatus went dormant into Rose as they entered the mansion. The rest of her seraphim stayed manifest.

Sergei led them through to a sitting room with the afternoon sun streaming in the windows, and gestured for them to sit down. “So did you manage to catch that hellion you've been after?”

“Yes, we did finally quell him. The Singing Phantom is no longer a threat. I got myself a new seraph out of it, in fact. His name is Inkitatus and he's been a very refreshing addition to my team. I'll also look for a seraph who can help restore all the fields that the Singing Phantom despoiled. But first we came here to take care of something else.”

While they waited for Alisha, Rose made small talk, asking Sergei about his two children, which he happily talked about. It was actually incredibly endearing to listen to him talk about his son in particular (since his daughter was still crib-bound, and had been sick recently so she wasn't very active) with such enthusiasm and excitement.

Then, Alisha appeared in the doorway. Sergei, seeing this, stood up with a smile; “I should get back to my men. I leave you in excellent hands, Dame Shepherd.” Then he paused as he passed his wife and pecked a loving kiss to her forehead before proceeding out of the room.

_'Aww,'_ Inkitatus murmured,  _'that's adorable.'_

Alisha came to them with a big smile on her pretty face; “It's so good to see you, Rose!”

In her enthusiasm, the princess threw her arms around the Shepherd and gave her a big hug. Then she pivoted and drew Scout into a hug as well, much to his surprise. After that, she also hugged Lailah and Mikleo. Edna physically stepped back, declining permission (she didn't like to be touched by anyone for any reason if it could be helped), and it seemed that the opportunity for Zaveid never arose.

She stopped short when she encountered Rhiannon, who was regarding her with frank puzzlement. “Oh, I don't believe I've been introduced to you.”

“You... can see me?” The fire seraph blinked. “I was given to understand that your resonance was weak at best.”

_Oops_ , Rose thought, and rushed to intervene before Rhiannon had a chance to make a bad first impression upon the woman who would be tending her new vessel and giving her a place to establish herself. “Ah, Alisha, this is Rhiannon. She's a fire seraph who joined me temporarily on my journey, while we were hunting the Singing Phantom. She is actually the entire reason we're here right now.”

Alisha sketched a shallow but respectful curtsy, a fitting gesture of a noblewoman greeting a seraph; “Pleased to meet you, Seraph Rhiannon.”

Rhiannon mimicked the curtsy; “A pleasure to meet you, my lady.”

“As for why we're here,” Rose continued, “Rhiannon needs a place to settle down, as her home has been effectively destroyed. So, we thought she might do well here. Alisha, I know you've been wanting a seraph around here, so if you can provide Rhiannon with a safe location to be enshrined and proper tending, she will protect your homestead with her blessing.”

“Really?” Alisha's eyes lit up with delight. “Are you sure about that? Is there anything I can do to accommodate you? We don't have a proper shrine for you, and we can't afford to build one right now. Money is tight because of the decreased crop yield from the fields.”

“I'm a fire seraph,” Rhiannon said mildly. “Do you have a fireplace? A hearth?”

“Yes, but we don't keep it lit this time of year. The house gets too warm with a roaring fire in the summer.”

“I don't need a roaring fire. A large candle or an oil lamp will do in the summer, and a constant fire in the hearth will do in the colder months. You don't even need to monitor the fire at all times; I will keep stray sparks from igniting and burning your house down. I just need a well-tended flame of some decent size for a vessel. And...” She hesitated.

“And?” Alisha prompted gently. “What else do you need?”

“I need a family. My blessing is a domestic, familial one. It promotes peace and tranquility in the homestead, primarily amongst the family I am a part of. I have not used it in this manner in a very long time, as I primarily used it for my own family, but... My husband and son are dead now, so I am alone; I would need to adopt your family as my own for it to work properly.”

It was actually rather interesting to watch Alisha absorb and parse this information; when she got to the part where Rhiannon spoke of her son and husband, the princess's face became a mask of concern. She reached forward boldly and put a hand on Rhiannon's; “I would be honored for you to adopt my family as your own. It has been something I've rather dreamed of, to have a seraph living around here, so that my children can grow up with seraphic blessings, and so they can learn more easily about what we humans owe to seraphim. Sergei and I talked for a time of moving back to Ladylake, to raise our children there, because there is the shrine with the Lord of the Land there, but... we both would prefer our children to grow up here, far away from the political machine that is Hyland government.”

Rhiannon seemed a little perplexed and quietly moved her hand away, as she wasn't a fan of physical contact; “I am not particularly good with children. I do not have much experience with humans.”

Alisha, realizing that she had been too presumptuous, withdrew and sat back, giving the seraph plenty of space. “I don't expect you to have a hand in raising them, but having a place to pray to seraphim, and pay respects, will help them to understand what we owe you.”

Rhiannon hesitated, and then blurted out the question she'd asked earlier; “How can you see me? I was told you had low resonance.”

“Alisha does have low resonance, but it isn't non-existent,” Rose said. “She can see my Sub Lords because my domain is apparently strong enough to trigger her resonance. At least, for the most part this is true. She seems to have trouble seeing Zaveid if he's not directly in front of her.”

“Yes, well,” Rhiannon murmured, almost under her breath, “that's probably to her benefit.”

“Hey!” Zaveid protested.

Alisha just gave a tentative, uncertain smile. It was clear she had no idea what they were all referring to. Rose wasn't sure she wanted to break her friend's impression of the purity of seraphim by revealing about Zaveid's tendency toward skirt-chasing or the semi-lewd things he said about nearly any human or seraph of the female persuasion. Rose herself was completely and utterly used to his quirky behavior and she knew that he actually meant nothing negative by it (it was actually a bizarre way of paying respects to women and the beauty he saw in them) but she also knew that it had taken her a while to get used to being teased by him just for being a woman.

“What she means,” Scout said, seeing nothing wrong with bursting that bubble, “is that Zaveid is kind of a lech. He says things that might make you or your husband uncomfortable. It's probably for the best that you don't hear him.”

“I was talking about his state of undress,” Rhiannon snapped. “Where I come from, men and women both remain fully clothed for anyone but their intimate partners. They do _not_ parade around half naked in broad daylight! _Especially_ in cold weather!”

“Oh, I've seen that,” Alisha said without missing a beat. “I wasn't aware there was anything wrong with the way he's dressed. Seraphim are very different from humans, after all.”

By now, Zaveid was howling with laughter so hard that he was doubled over, a hand against the wall to brace himself.

“In any case,” Rose said, trying to retake control of the situation, “Rhiannon would like a permanent home and this seems like a good place. If you can find her a decent vessel to live in, I will release her from her Sub Lord contract and let her bind herself here.”

_'Listen to you!'_ Inky teased.  _'Making yourself sound so important and all-powerful!'_

There was some sniggering from the other seraphim and a puzzled look on Alisha's face as she registered another voice. Inky's voice was very, very different from Zaveid's or Mikleo's, yet still masculine enough to register to anyone who heard him that he was male. It was clear that Alisha was trying to figure out who this new voice was, which meant that Inky had said it at a frequency to be heard by everyone.

“That would be my other new seraph,” she said, “who is not manifest and you have not met yet because he's an obnoxious prick, and because he's physically too big to be in this room here. I will introduce you to him when we go outside.”

_'Obnoxious prick?'_ Inky retorted. _'Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were talking about me, I didn't realize you were actually talking about Zaveid.'_

“Hey!” Zaveid protested even as he regained control of himself from his laughing fit. “What is this, Pick On The Old Man Day?”

Alisha just smiled, first at her and then at Rhiannon; “I will need a day or two to find a suitable vessel for you for the summer. Come winter, you can have the hearth in the main room. We keep that very well tended in the autumn and winter. With luck, by next summer we'll have a proper shrine built for you. I'll speak with the architects immediately about commissioning a small shrine.”

“I don't need a shrine,” Rhiannon said, “as I said, a good oil lamp or a constant fire in the hearth, are good enough for me. Proximity to my family is crucial. If I feel divided from what I have taken as my family, my blessing will not work. Trust me, I know my blessing well enough to know that.” 

“But I want you to have a proper permanent vessel! One befitting you as a seraph! An old, ordinary lamp is not anywhere suitable.” Alisha seemed beyond surprised; she seemed almost scandalized. 

It reminded Rose of when, during the first year of her tenure as the new Shepherd, after Alisha had finished her time as Rose's Squire, the princess asked her why she didn't have a Shepherd's Cloak, and Rose told her “I don't want one.” Alisha was so puzzled by that, and almost offended, that she proceeded to have one made for the new Shepherd anyway, and Rose had ended up just accepting the cloak when it was presented to her, rather than hurt her friend's feelings. As it turned out, she actually was grateful for it now. The cloak was both a symbol of her rank – which made things easier for her when it came to giving orders as the Shepherd – and a sturdy, durable garment that kept her warm and dry. Plus, it was a cherished gift from one of her dearest friends. (It also reminded her, sometimes, of another dear friend that she missed more than she'd ever openly admit.)

Rhiannon was having none of Alisha's pomp and circumstance. “I just told you what I need. That will do just fine. I do not need fancy. If you  _insist_ on gilding it, I will not stop you, but you do  _not_ need to build a separate building and staff it just for me. It is better if I am close to  _you_ and your family, anyway. I need a sturdy, clean, pure vessel that produces fire consistently and has access to plenty of fuel for said fire. That's  _all I need._ All I can ask you.”

“It's best,” Lailah said helpfully, “to do as the seraph asks rather than to do something more lavish. She has every right to refuse a vessel you offer her if she finds it unsatisfactory. Honestly, don't try so hard, Alisha. I'm sure you have something suitable already.”

Alisha put her hands up in defeat. “I'll find you a sturdy oil lamp. However, it may take a day or two to find the right one. Most of ours are fairly old. We use mostly candle sconces and sunlight for lighting around here this time of year. Shall I go start the search now?”

“If you wish,” Rhiannon said with a shrug. Then she looked at Rose; “I would like permission to familiarize myself with this place. And...” She hesitated, steeled herself, and plunged ahead, “I would like a little privacy with Inky. Is that permissible?”

Rose looked around for a moment. No one seemed particularly opposed to that, and she could think of no reason to deny the request. “I don't mind. We'll have to do so outside, of course, since he shouldn't manifest indoors like this. But you do realize we're not leaving for a few days, right? You don't have to say goodbye just yet.”

“Well,” Alisha said brightly, “that answers the question I was just about to ask: how long you plan to be with us. I'm glad to hear it. I would love to have a chance to catch up with you, without you chomping at the bit to go hunt down another hellion. I'll have your usual guest room prepared for you both. Two beds are enough, right?”

“Yes, my seraphim don't need beds. I wish my Squire didn't either, it would make our journey cheaper.” She grinned at Scout, who just stuck his tongue out at her. “Alas, I have to treat him at least as well as Sorey treated me, or else I'm a bad mentor. I just wish he was a little more grateful once in a while.”

The Shepherd then hid her laughter behind her hand as the young Squire outright sputtered at that; “Well, you could be nicer once in a while, you old hag!”

“All right, all right,” Alisha said with a merry laugh, putting hands on their shoulders. “Please no ugly fighting in my house? Take it outside if you children want to tumble around and trade punches.”

“Why don't you come with us for a moment?” Rose said with a smile. “Then I can introduce you to my new seraph partner. I think you'll like him.”

 

* * *

 

Ultimately, Rose and her companions stayed with Alisha's family for a week while Rhiannon got settled into her new home. As a bonus, during their stay there, Zaveid and Inkitatus disappeared – with permission, for the amount of time they were away from their Shepherd – for about a day and a half, returning with an itinerant earth seraph named Thorne who could help restore the estate's fallowed fields, despoiled by the Singing Phantom just after harvest season last year. While Thorne's agrarian blessing wouldn't necessarily save this year's harvest, which was already devastated, he could restore vitality to the land for next year's harvest and with proper care, the fields would remain fertile for a long while after that.

It turned out that Thorne was a longtime friend of normins, and so the tiny seraphim had enlisted his help months ago in trying to repair the damage wrought by the Singing Phantom throughout Glenwood, though they had also covered for him and hid his identity until after Bucephalus was defeated, because Thorne was in no way much of a fighter, and was not keen on fighting any hellions himself.

Inkitatus stated multiple times that he had no memory of deliberately despoiling land; rather, it was something that just happened in the haze of rage and despair that typified hellionization. This meant that Thorne wouldn't have been in any danger of being targeted by Bucephalus, so long as he stayed out of the hellion's way and cleaned up afterward, but they'd had no way of knowing that at the time. In any case, Thorne was glad that the rampage was over, so that he could more easily move through the continent, healing the damage.

Rose offered to take him on as a Sub Lord temporarily so that he could move safely, escorting him around to the various places of the worst blight, but Thorne declined, saying that he didn't need any escorting. (She learned afterward too that Edna was deeply offended by the offer, because there was some sort of personal grievance between her and Thorne. The fact that Rose just made an offer to take on Thorne and make him Edna's equal, even temporarily, without so much as a warning, deeply offended the small earth seraph and made her especially bitter, but she refused to talk about it. Rose wasn't even sure why Edna was so upset or what the source of the bad blood between them was, but it would end up taking her a long time to earn Edna's forgiveness for the transgression.)

Once Rhiannon was settled into her new vessel (a pretty green ceramic oil lantern decorated with the royal seal of Hyland, with a newly trimmed wick and supplied with a ten-liter drum full of oil to keep it going for a long time), the Shepherd and her entourage decided it was time they moved on. Inkitatus was eager to return to Glaivend Basin and begin the earnest search for the Obsidian Knife.

To her surprise, Rhiannon was very emotional when they said goodbye. No one was surprised that she was emotional at her parting with Inkitatus (she embraced him for several minutes, sobbing quietly into his neck while everyone else just stood around awkwardly and waited), but then she asked to hug Rose goodbye as well.

“I am still deeply indebted to you, Shepherd,” she murmured. “I can only hope that by protecting your friends, I will begin to repay you for all you have done for me and those I love. Please be safe on your journey. Inky,” her voice became very heavy with a repressed sob, but she pressed through it, “take care of her for me.”

_'Will do, my dear.'_ The stallion nuzzled her affectionately.  _'Don't worry, we'll see each other again. But you need to focus on making yourself a comfortable home here. And I have a Knife to find.'_

Sergei and Alisha each hugged Rose goodbye, telling her to come by any time, that they looked forward to her next visit. Sergei also reminded Scout to continue practicing with the sword, and to come by if he wanted more lessons.

Then, the Shepherd and her companions turned around and left the Diphda estate, headed toward the broad swoop of land between Rolance and Hyland known as Glaivend Basin.

It wasn't until they were well away from the estate gates, strolling briskly through the summer morning sunshine, that Mikleo spoke of something that seemed to have been bothering him.

“You know, Inkitatus, I was under the impression that you and Rhiannon had a deep mutual bond, but you seem more eager to be away from her. She was heartbroken to see you leave and you almost seem as though you are glad to be rid of her.”

_'I am not glad to be rid of her at all. I do love her, Mikleo, she was a good partner to me, and we worked well together. But our partnership is over. There is no reason for me to stay with her except out of affection, which is of no benefit to her. She needs to move on with her life, and I am ready to move on with mine.'_

“That just sounds so cold, heartless, and mercenary.”

_'It may seem that way, but it is not so cut and dry. I exist to help my partners. Rhiannon is no longer my partner; our partnership was severed when Praetor died. Callous? Perhaps, but I did the best I could for her. She is now where she needs to be and she will move on with her life. I will always care about her, but I cannot be her partner again.'_

“And why not?”

_'She no longer needs me. Besides, I am now partnered to our Shepherd here.'_

“What do you mean, your partnership was severed when her son died?” Rose raised an eyebrow at him. “Are you saying her son was the reason for your partnership in the first place?”

_'As a matter of fact, yes, that is pretty much exactly what I am saying. I commend you on intuiting that, Shepherd. You are no doubt confused as to why this is, of course. Consider our respective blessings. Her blessing is one of domestic peace, and mine is one of amplification. I met Rhiannon and Parill decades before they adopted Praetor, but I did not become her partner until after they had Praetor with them. Yes, Praetor is the entire reason I became part of the family in the first place.'_

This was news to Rose. Out of respect to Rhiannon's grief, they hadn't spoken much at all about the two deceased seraphim. Rose knew nothing about Praetor or Parill beyond their names, that they were both earth seraphim, and that Rhiannon loved both of them desperately. Their deaths were a terrible burden on her. It wasn't unreasonable to think that she would be in mourning for them for as long as Rose lived, given how long seraphim lived and how deep their grief could run.

“I don't understand,” Scout said finally. “I thought you'd always been with them.”

_'Not at all. She might have implied that, because it felt like it to her, but no, I was the most recent addition to their family. I am much older than any of them, but I only became a member of their family a few centuries ago.'_

“But why?”

_'The short answer is that it was because Praetor was cursed.'_

Scout scratched nervously at the back of his neck. “Cursed? Really?”

“What he means,” Zaveid said finally. “is that Praetor had a cursed existence. That's what you get when when a seraph's blessing is in fact not beneficial to anyone.”

_Like Dezel_ , the thought crossed Rose's mind before she could clamp it out.  _Or Eizen, for that matter._

Scout got an intensely focused expression on his face; “I didn't know that was possible.”

“Seraphic blessings are very strange, and not always entirely beneficial. Curses accumulate malevolence rather than repel it, which means that seraphim with negative blessings are at extremely high risk of dragonization.” 

_'Correct. They are seraphim whose blessings literally dramatically increase their changes of being around malevolence, which in turn increases their risk of hellionization and dragonization. Praetor was one such seraph. His curse was one of bellicosity.'_

Zaveid picked up the narrative from there. “There are two ways to avoid hellionization when you have a negative blessing. The first is to become impervious to malevolence, such as having a pure vessel, something to ward off malevolence. The other is to have something suppress the negative blessing, preventing malevolence from being attracted in the first place.”

_'Precisely. The reason I joined with Rhiannon in a bonded partnership is because of_ her _blessing, and because of Praetor's. Her blessing is the opposite of Praetor's, beneficial where his was detrimental. Opposing blessings work just as domains do: when two are in a vicinity, the stronger one prevails. Thus, when I bonded with her, amplifying her blessing, hers became the more powerful one, and it suppressed his. So long as he stayed with his mother, his curse was mitigated almost completely. But...'_ The stallion stopped walking and lowered his head, his ears twitching with anxiety.  _'When Heldalf trapped us, his domain overpowered and corrupted all of us almost instantly. Then Praetor's blessing no longer mattered. Baaah, now I've gone and made myself sad. If you don't mind, I'd like to change the subject, as I don't feel particularly good right now. Those memories hurt a lot.'_

 

* * *

 

 

At Inky's request, the topic of conversation did not return to the “family” he had recently left, and so instead, they found themselves talking about Alisha and her connection to the current and previous Shepherds. Inkitatus had not shown much interest in the princess of Hyland until he met her, at which point he became intensely curious. But he had waited until now to ask his questions, because he hadn't wanted to draw attention to his curiosity, nor did he want to invite his new Shepherd to talk too much about her former Squire in the presence of said former Squire. For being a seraph known to be nomadic, he was surprisingly savvy of human ego.

Rose found herself explaining to her new seraph the backstory of how she knew Alisha, and Sergei as well. She tried to explain the convoluted story of how she came to take on Alisha as her Squire temporarily while they worked together to combat the earliest fallout from Heldalf's demise, including a threat to Sorey's timeless slumber in the remains of Camlann.

It was actually a difficult tale to tell, because Edna kept correcting her on details (apparently Rose wasn't very good at remembering things from that early in her Shepherdhood) but at least she was able to get across that the journey had been a form of training for Rose herself as the Shepherd, and a path of redemption and healing for Alisha, who had been traumatized by personal betrayal by someone she loved and respected; her mentor and mother-figure had turned out to be a powerful and dangerous hellion and had forced Alisha to execute her.

_'So, what is the reason for the shortness of her tenure as your Squire?'_

“It was a temporary arrangement from the outset. As soon as we finished what she had set out to do, she had found her calling and really couldn't continue as my Squire. Besides, her resonance is so low, it was starting to put a strain on me.”

_'Well, that I can certainly understand! Her resonance confuses me. There were times when I felt like she was looking right through me, as though she couldn't see me. Yet she could touch me.'_

“Alisha's resonance is quite low, but it fluctuates wildly. I legitimately never quite know when she can see my seraphim and when she can't, except when she speaks to them or interacts with them. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with me, either, though if I touch her, she usually can see and hear at least Lailah. Sometimes she can see them all clearly on her own, and then five minutes later she can't seem to see any of them. It's the strangest thing. I have yet to find a good reliable explanation for her weird resonance fluctuation. It just is what it is, I guess.”

_'That may change over time, with Rhiannon living there now. The presence of a powerful seraph should help stabilize her resonance. We found, when we were living on the move, that if we settled anywhere for more than a couple of years, humans started to notice our presence, even if they weren't quite able to see us. Humans with no known resonance, no reason to suspect our existence, seemed to begin to perceive us after a few years of us living nearby. That's one reason why we maintained a nomadic life – we feared human interaction.'_

Mikleo frowned in contemplation; “Lailah, correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't you living in Ladylake for about twenty or thirty years between Shepherds?” As expected, Lailah gave no actual confirmation of this, but she also didn't deny it. Due to the complexity of some of her oaths, Lailah couldn't talke about her previous Shepherds, but her lack of denial, in this case, served to accentuate the water seraph's point. “Alisha mostly grew up in Ladylake, so why wouldn't her resonance have grown with that?”

_'This Ladylake is a very large city, is it not? Did Princess Alisha grow up on the grounds of Lailah's shrine?'_

“No,” Lailah said, “my Sanctuary is not very close to where Alisha lived while in Ladylake. I'm afraid I can't tell you much more than that, but no, she did not grow up within my direct domain, mostly because I was dormant for a long time.” (Left unsaid was what had brought her out of her dormancy, which was the revival of the Sacred Blade festival, as well as the arrival of Sorey at that very festival. Rose knew about it because she'd made her seraphim tell her about it, but Scout and Inkitatus didn't know, and probably didn't need to know right now.)

_'And that would be the difference. May I remind you, Mikleo, that my family always avoided large human settlements? So that's how we knew that it was our presence directly that influenced the humans who started noticing us. A seraph's direct domain is what can influence human resonance, not the presence within a few kilometers' range. Rhiannon will be staying very close to Alisha for a while, so there will likely be a change to her resonance as a result.'_

“Fair enough.” Mikleo shrugged. “Also, it has occurred to me that we didn't tell Inky the other reason that Alisha left the Squire pact.”

_'Her resonance afflicting her Shepherd seems a very valid reason to me. What more reason do you really need?'_

“She became the main voice of peace in Hyland during the earliest negotiations at the end of the war with Rolance. She rose to power as a politician and ambassador, working to end the long conflict between warring countries. She couldn't divorce herself from her country in order to become a Shepherd's Squire permanently. You know the Shepherd can't be bounded to any country or any person, so because she wanted to be there for her people, she had to leave the Squireship.”

“And _then_ she married the ambassador from Rolance,” Zaveid said with a grin. “After that, she had to retire from politics, because of fears of conflict of interest. However, you've seen for yourself that she's still in touch with her people and will act on their behalf if they need her to.”

_'I have?'_ The horse's ears twitched.  _'I do not remember this.'_

“Well, you've seen it, even if you're too dumb to realize it. We saw her dealing with some petitions while we were staying there, but maybe you're too horselike to notice what was happening.”

_'Humph,_ ' Inky retorted, swishing his tail in annoyance. Then his ears flopped sideways.  _'I am not remotely human, but neither are you, Zaveid. Just because you are shaped like one, does not make you human. You are a seraph, born of arcane and spiritual forces, like the rest of us. None of us have any humanity.'_

“Speak for yourself,” Mikleo said mildly, but refused to say any more on the matter.

 

* * *

 

Sometime later, as they settled down to rest for a bit, Inkitatus showed signs that he had something to say. Rose was getting used to his unique mannerisms – he communicated a lot more with posture and body language than her other seraphim – and could tell by the angle and movement of his ears, and the way his tail swished, that something was on his mind.

“What's bothering you, Inky? And don't tell me 'nothing' because I can tell you're thinking about something. If you don't want to talk, just say so.”

Another idle swish of his tail (there were no flies for him to swat away, so this was definitely a nervous tic on his part), before he relented;  _'I am having stupid second thoughts about everything. I...'_ Then he clammed up and said no more.

He didn't speak again until they had checked into a roadside inn. The she felt a tickling in her mind;  _'Shepherd, can I have a moment alone with you? I need to get something off my mind, and I do not wish to be overheard by the others.'_

“All right, I can do that.” She handed her cloak and pack to Scout and told him to take it to their room and then to wait there on the inn grounds with the seraphim.

Once she had gotten it across to the other seraphim that none of them were to follow, because Inky wanted privacy, she set out with Inkitatus dormant inside her (because he didn't fit through doorways in inns) until they were well away from the inn. At that point, he manifested beside her and trod the ground at a pace matching hers. As usual, his hooves made no sound, even on the hard-packed road beneath their feet. She'd never known a horse to walk so lightly. Big as he was, Inky was capable of sneaking up on her if he wanted to, but he had never seen fit to do so, thankfully.

“Talk to me, Inky. What's on your mind?”

_'I simply... I want to know if I have hijacked your purpose with my single-minded focus on the Obsidian Knife. I have become so focused on finding it, that I fear I have made myself unwelcome. This is the first time I have felt so close to an Artefact that will make me feel whole, and yet... I wonder if I am wrong to pursue it.'_ His eyes were wild with anxiety and he kept tossing his head, sending what remained of his mane (which wasn't much, as it was still growing out) flaring repeatedly.  _'I begin to wonder if I should have stayed with Rhiannon a while, until I felt confident enough to go out and look for it myself. I start to wonder if I've stopped you from doing something more important that you should be doing. Was I wrong, Rose? Have I put everyone else at risk in my desire to be whole?'_ He sounded so anxious and sad at the same time.

“I don't think you were wrong at all, though I do think you sometimes get a little tunnel-visioned. For example, whenever you talk about that Knife, you often follow up with the mention that it's the final step toward becoming a Prime Lord, which is ridiculous.” She put a hand on his shoulder as they walked, feeling his muscles bunch and release with each stride. “I don't think you're ready for that step, Inky. I've done a lot of thinking, and I believe that you're years away from being ready for that.”

He was silent, attentive, though his tail swished again.

“I don't mean to force you to relive your pain, but you were a hellion for over a decade, and were in the process of dragonizing when we finally stopped your rampage. You need a _lot_ of time to stabilize and come to terms with what has happened to you. You know that the Prime Lord is the very foundation upon which a Shepherd's entire existence is built, right? I would be bereft if something happened to Lailah. I love all of my seraphim, including you, but Lailah is a _lot_ more than just one of my seraphim. Without her, I'm not a Shepherd at all.”

_'I think you misunderstand my intentions, but I do not think it is your fault; I have likely been very unclear in my words. I know all of what you are saying, believe me. I was Sub Lord to a Shepherd once, whose Prime Lord was abruptly killed. The severing of the Pact was very unpleasant, to put it mildly. I know that I am nowhere near ready. But finding the Knife is the first step toward becoming a legitimate Sub Lord. That, more than anything, is why I have pursued it for so long.'_

“Legitimate? Why do you think yourself illegitimate? You have spoken repeatedly of finding this Knife in order to be, as you say, 'whole' or something to that effect. But you accepted the Pact all the same. You are no lesser of a Sub Lord than Mikleo, Zaveid or Edna, so why do you speak as though you are?”

_'But I am lesser than them. I am useless to you without armatus.'_ He said it so matter-of-fact that it bewildered her for a moment.

“No, you are not. Why do you think you are?”

He was clearly confused.  _'But I...'_

“I never armatized with Rhiannon, and I wouldn't call her useless either, even if she couldn't fight. Armatus is powerful, but it absolutely is not the be-all, end-all of a Sub Lord's contribution to the team. You told me up front when you joined us what you could and couldn't do, so we make adjustments to include you and your abilities. And you've been a big help, whether you realize it or not.”

_'You are very kind,'_ he replied sadly,  _'but I think you do not truly understand._ ' Then he stopped, both verbally and physically, as if something had occurred to him.  _'I had told myself I would not relive that time of my life, but now I'm starting to think I have to tell you about my history with Shepherds. Perhaps you will understand why am I so fixated on becoming truly whole.'_

“Well, I figured this was why you wanted to speak with me privately. You seem hesitant to show any weakness of any sort.”

_'When you have spent centuries being the pillar of strength for someone else, it is hard to allow yourself to show weakness. This is a very awkward position I have found myself in.'_

She rubbed his brow, tracing a tiny little curl of white fur at the center of his forehead, between his eyes. “I've dealt with brash machismo for years, with Zaveid. You think way too highly of yourself if you believe you're not allowed to lean on someone once in a while.”

_'As I said, Shepherd Rose, you are far too kind. I have not known this level of kindness in Shepherds.'_

She thought for a moment that Inkitatus would have really liked Sorey, but her promise to herself to never bring the topic of her predecessor up without good reason prevented her from voicing this. Besides, it was probably for the best.

_'I served many Shepherds in my day. I liked them, for the most part, except for the last three. Those three Shepherds, and their bonded seraphim, all treated me as nothing more than a beast of burden. I was given orders and I performed them, but no one ever thanked me, and no one ever cared what I thought. I was constantly reminded of my place as a lesser Sub Lord, because I had no armatus. I tried to make myself useful enough to be appreciated. I developed my stealth movement, which earned me my True Name, Keimavus Rilov, Silent Hooves. But it didn't matter. Without the power of armatus, I was a lesser being and thus no one cared about me. I stopped talking for over a decade, and no one noticed. By the time I served my last Shepherd, I had become a jaded, disinterested nag, struggling to find a reason to even continue existing.'_

She wanted to hug him, because he sounded so forlorn, but he was standing just enough apart from her, and she wasn't sure he would welcome it.

_'Shepherd Marietta, my last Shepherd, disliked me. I don't even know why she bothered to take me as her Sub Lord. She never let me do anything unless she'd ordered it of me. She kept me on a very short tether. Her Prime Lord likewise despised me, treating me as a lesser being, and the other Sub Lords followed suit. If I spoke out of turn, I was silenced, roughly. She wouldn't release me, though, and even when I tried to break the pact, I wasn't able to; I don't even know why. It was awful. I was miserable and trapped. I also had a sense of impending doom, but no one would listen to me. It stayed that way until Marietta herself turned traitor.'_

Rose felt suddenly cold. “Traitor? Do you mean that she became a Fallen Shepherd?”

_'Yes. She began to accumulate malevolence, which she internalized entirely herself, and she ended up hellionizing. I suspected something was wrong because I felt something wrong for months before it happened, but the other seraphim never saw it coming. When she hellionized, she attacked all of her seraphim, including me. She killed one of the Sub Lords, as well as the Prime Lord, which broke our pact, and so I managed to escape with my life and most of my sanity intact. I ran blindly for days until my panic gave way to fatigue. As for the other Sub Lords, I do not know what happened to them, or the hellion that had been my Shepherd, either. Try as I might, I cannot bring myself to feel sorry for any of them. They made me miserable, and nearly killed me.'_

He raised his head up, as if looking to the horizon. His ears swiveled around briefly as he registered some sound Rose couldn't hear, but he remained motionless otherwise.

_'Needless to say, with my faith in humanity broken, I was not about to contract again. I was determined to make my way in the world, even if I had to find a bunch of wild horses to mingle with for a few generations. And that's when I met Syrene. She was a wind seraph, and my first seraphic partner. I won't talk much about her, so please don't ask. But she is the one who gave me reason to be what I became, which in a round-about way is what brought me to be with Rhiannon and her family. She made me who I am. Her voice, lifted in song to greet the morning, still inspires me to this day.'_ There was a great sadness in his expressive eyes.

_'I am relatively ambivalent about Shepherd journeys, because I do not have the best of memories of them.'_ Then, to Rose's surprise, he took a step forward and pushed his nose against her cheek in a nuzzle.  _'You, however, have been very kind to me; you remind me of the first Shepherd I served, and how much hope he filled me with. He made me proud to be a Sub Lord, even if I was still a lesser Sub Lord without armatus.'_

“There is no such thing as a lesser Sub Lord, though,” she protested softly. “The Prime Lord is the one who maintains the various pacts, and the one whose Oath is what enables us all to purify. The Sub Lords are seraphim who, in exchange for a binding pact, borrow the Prime Lord's power. That's all there is. There is no greater or lesser in any case.”

_'That is not how it used to be.'_

“Well, that's how it is now. I'm the only Shepherd on the continent, and so what I say, goes. Especially for my team. I'm certain Lailah will support me on this, because I know she feels the same way I do. As long as you're my Sub Lord, that's all you are; you are neither greater nor lesser. Even if we never find that Knife, you will always be my void seraph, no more, no less. However, I do need you to clarify a few things, because this long story you just told me contradicts a few things.”

_'What do you mean?'_ She sensed no anxiety (as with exposed lies) only confusion.

“You offered to become my Sub Lord yourself. I didn't have to ask you; you offered. You also told me, after the pact was finished, that you – and I quote – missed serving a Shepherd. I still remember that, because that was the first I'd heard of you ever being a Sub Lord before. You seemed quite eager to join us, and you were very up front about what you can and can't do. Now you tell me that you are nervous about Shepherds, that your previous Shepherds abused you, and you fled the last one after she Fell and hellionized. Surely you can see the contradiction here. So, which is it?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “I need to know I can trust you. You are very charismatic and convincing, but I feel like you've been less than truthful with me.”

His ears flopped sideways, his head lowered, and his entire posture slouched wearily as he seemed to deflate in submission;  _'There was no lie in anything I said, Shepherd. I was eager to join you, because you are a pure vessel, unlikely to become corrupted. Can you blame me for being terrified of that transformation again? I would sooner die than do that again. You may understand some of what I have been through, but none of you have ever hellionized, so you do not truly understand the absolute helplessness. I would rather suffer for the rest of eternity as I did under those Shepherds, even the last one, than lose myself again to hellionization. Do I miss_ those _Shepherds? No, not at all. Do I miss other Shepherds I have served, and the camaraderie that I felt on their teams? Absolutely.'_

Well, that did make sense, and it felt good to have the contradiction cleared up, though his dejected posture made her feel bad. She reached out and gathered his head into her arms, cradling it against her tenderly. “You're not alone anymore, Inky. I'm sorry for all you've been through, and I'll do my best to prove to you that a Shepherd can be strong and kind at the same time. Though, just because I'm a woman, don't think me meek or mild-mannered. I used to be an assassin, and I can still kill if I have to. I just haven't had to for a few years now. Don't go treating me like a soft woman. Zaveid made that mistake all of once, and he hasn't made it since!”

To her surprise, he found amusement in that;  _'An assassin, a pickpocket, a rogue, a hermit and the illustrious Lady of the Lake. You are quite the motley band of unique individuals. I'm starting to think Mikleo is the only normal one among you.'_

“He's hardly 'normal' either!” She grinned as she scratched his forehead. He closed his eyes and his posture relaxed a bit. “Are you feeling any better now for getting that off your chest... er, I guess it's your back in your case. Either way, do you feel some release?”

_'A little. It will take time to come to terms with everything. But... thank you. I needed to hear you say that.'_

“To answer your earlier question, Inky, you are not taking me away from anything of dire importance right now. I chased you all over this damned continent for over a year because you were the most pressing concern. Now that the Singing Phantom is no more, we can take time to search for this Artefact, at least until the next big crisis rears its ugly head, but you must also accept that it's possible that we may never find it. Having a good lead on it doesn't guarantee we'll find it.” She tapped his forehead gently as if in admonishment. “If it comes to it that we can't find the Obsidian Knife, you're going to have to accept that. You _don't_ need it to be my Sub Lord. We'll make use of you in other ways, and you will _not_ be considered a lesser individual. Honestly, Inkitatus, if you weren't worthy of standing beside my other seraphim, I wouldn't have accepted your pact in the first place. Armatus is nothing more than a tool, an ability. You have other abilities to make yourself useful to me. And you are a friend.”

_'You have my most sincere thanks. Shall we go back? I imagine your Prime Lord is going to start worrying soon. They usually do when physically separated from their Shepherds for any length of time.'_

“Lailah is a bit of a worrywart, but she trusts me, and I have ways to calling her if I need her.”

_'All the same, she is probably worrying, even if she will never admit it.'_ He presented himself sideways to her, offering to give her a ride back. 

She shook her head; “I think we can walk back, we haven't gone far enough to worry anyone, and it's a pleasant evening.”

_'You have been walking all day, Rose. I can carry you, it's not a problem.'_

“I'm used to walking all day. I've been doing it most of my life. Just walk with me, Inky, as it's nice to have someone to talk to while walking and lately Scout has been either distracted or moody.” She patted his shoulder and turned back toward the inn, which was still visible in the distance.

Inkitatus gave a very horsey shake of his head and turned his body with surprising agility so that he was alongside her. When she stepped forward, he matched her steps. Rose was in no huge hurry to get back to the inn, as she trusted her own skills to keep her safe, and she did have Inky nearby if something came up. Besides, it felt nice to stroll leisurely like this, and it was also uniquely nice to be alone with Inky, not having Edna's snide commentary or bickering with Zaveid in the background, nor Scout and his mood swings.

All the same, she was also glad to reach the inn. She found her seraphim waiting for her outside, along with her faithful Squire, who had found someone to practice swordplay with. There was an older woman and a young man (turned out to be a retired guard and her son) staying at the inn, and so Scout and the young man were doing some exercises together, with Mikleo standing off to one side, observing and calling out suggestions to Scout.

Lailah approached Rose, her smile bright and welcoming; “I was just about to start worrying, because you two were gone for longer than I expected. Is everything all right? Anything I should know about?”

“Everything is fine, Inky just needed to hear a few things. And you know how men are when it comes to things they think aren't very macho.”

Lailah just nodded and turned her smile to the horse; “Inky, you do know that you can come to me with any issues you have, yes? I understand if you needed to speak with Rose specifically, but please know that you can also come to me if you have a problem.”

_'I am aware of that, but thank you.'_

Rose stretched her arms over her head; “I'm bushed. I'd like my dinner, a bath and then my bed. In that order. Anything else can just damned well wait until tomorrow, I'm sure.”


	6. Faith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Rose and her seraphim begin to search for the Obsidian Knife, Scout begins to behave very strangely. Faced with the prospect of a malevolent Squire, Rose has to consider what has been previously unthinkable.

As was common for Rose's Shepherd journey, the journey through Glaivend Basin was not quick or easy. They got caught in two brief hellion hunts and three big hellion fights, including an earth-aligned one that was beginning to dragonize.

The fight with the dragonizing hellion was a weird one. Rose couldn't quite put a finger on what exactly it was about the fight that was different, but something felt wrong. The only concrete thing she could notice was that Scout seemed to be more erratic, occasionally pausing in battle to stare at the hellion as though trying to figure it out. She couldn't tell if he recognized it or not, but it seemed like he was trying to recall something. The problem was, the middle of a messy fight was no time to try and recollect something distant like that. But the fight was weird even without all that.

Inkitatus also somehow got pulled out of dormancy within Rose, and thus got mixed up in the whole fight. Rose wasn't sure how that had happened, since he normally stayed out of the way, but she thought she heard Scout say Inky's True Name at one point, almost as if trying to armatize with him. However, she wasn't sure if that was what had really happened, so she set that detail aside to investigate later if she remembered to.

As with Rhiannon, Inkitatus didn't react well in battle, but unlike her, he wasn't completely helpless. Although he had no genuine artes for fighting (all of his seraphic artes were centered on boosting his allies' abilities, he wasn't trained for martial artes, and his hidden artes took too long to cast to be effective in a fight), he still had a few tricks in his arsenal, namely a very potent kick. When the hellion got too close, Inkitatus gave it a rock-shattering kick with both back hooves, a kick that cracked its cranium and broke its charge, staggering it long enough to enable Rose to armatize with Zaveid and purify it. The amount of power she felt her wind seraph pouring into the Sylphystia was actually rather impressive.

The seraph that remained as the dust cleared was a small, very young-looking female earth seraph who seemed thoroughly confused as to what had happened to her. While Lailah tended to her, Rose let the armatus go and looked around to survey the damage. All in all, not much. Scout looked like he'd gotten a bit banged up (Mikleo was tending to him), and Zaveid was clearly a little tired from the amount of stamina he'd used up in that fight, but otherwise they were in pretty good shape, and the ground around them was not too badly broken up.

“Someone remind me to never get behind that lethal kicking machine,” Zaveid said cheerfully. “I've punched dragons before, and it's never pretty. You, my quadrupedal friend, just flat-foot kicked in the skull on a near-drake. Gotta admit, you're something of a badass when you want to be.”

_'Remind_ me _to never do that again,'_ the horse responded tartly, shaking his hooves gingerly one at a time.  _'I think I'm going to be aching for a while from that. I'm really not meant for this kind of thing, you know. Do I look like a warhorse to you?'_

Zaveid laughed and squatted down near the horse's flank; “Lemme have a look at your hooves here, see if you cracked them.”

_'Like you even know what to look for, you ignoramus. You know nothing about equine anatomy._ ' Inkitatus snorted loudly as he raised one hoof and let Zaveid examine it.

While they sorted themselves out, Rose moved over to where Lailah was speaking with the newly-purified seraph. She was a small, young-looking earth seraph. When asked what her name was, she seemed to have trouble answering. She looked at Rose with frank distrust, even after being told that Rose was the Shepherd. She seemed young enough to not understand what the Shepherd was.

Ultimately, she gave her name as Lily, and said that she had been living in a village called Talys. But her memory was very foggy with pain and she wasn't sure what had happened. She seemed very, very confused as to where she was and how she'd gotten there. It appeared that she had no memory of her hellionization, so they had no idea how long she had suffered thus.

“Talys? That name rings a bell,” Rose said. “Where have I heard that before?”

“Talys is a fishing village on the northern coast, I believe,” Mikleo said. “They specialize in catching blue-finned cod, which is the prime ingredient in a chowder that's all the rage in Rolance. Talysien chowder, I think it's called.”

“I love how Mikky-boy, the youngest of us, is our resident walking encyclopedia and world map,” Zaveid said, not unkindly, as he and Inkitatus gathered around their companions. “Now that you mention that, I remember that place. It's a fine place if you don't mind the stink of fish all the time.”

_'I've never known Talys to have a seraph living there, however,'_ Inkitatus interjected.  _'Very strange. Small towns are not good homes for seraphim, after all. They don't have a proper, purified shrine.'_

“Even though larger cities may have purified shrines, they also have more people,” Zaveid said, “which means more malevolence. Only if a city has an enshrined Lord of the Land does it even begin to matter, and we know that they almost always have their hands full just keeping their domains stable. Seraphim and humans still cannot easily coexist.”

_'And I'm not convinced they ever should, outside of specific pacts such as we have. It's a great ideal in theory, the coexistence of humans and seraphim, but without a continent full of Shepherds to keep malevolence at a minimum, it is ultimately us seraphim who suffer the most.'_

This was an intellectual debate that Inkitatus had been having with his other male seraphic companions ever since he joined them, and sometimes it was fun to listen to the three-way debate (Rose was surprised at how often Zaveid could be drawn into the debate because she'd never known him to voice much of an opinion on the topic before, beyond saying that he supported Sorey and Rose's efforts) but other times it was tiresome, because it could make Mikleo in particular very abrasive and frustrated.

Right now, Rose was too tired to listen to this cerebral debate about the merits of integration, so she cleared her throat and spoke, in order to draw the topic of conversation back to the seraph they had just purified; “Do we need to escort her somewhere? She seems reluctant to be near us.”

Lily spoke up almost immediately; “I  _don't_ need to be escorted. I can find my way out of here on my own. Thank you but I'm fine on my own.”

“Just be careful, because you're still recovering from being a hellion,” Rose said. “I really don't want to have to hunt you down and purify you again.”

As the seraph made a hasty departure from them, Rose bit back a sigh of frustration. It wasn't easy when purified seraphim showed abject disdain or mistrust in her. Not all seraphim believed in or supported the very concept that the Shepherd ideal was founded on. Or some, like Lily, were likely too young to remember a time when Shepherds existed.

“Try to not let it bother you,” Lailah said softly, putting a gentle and comforting hand on Rose's shoulder. “It isn't personal, and you're doing a great thing that benefits everyone, even if some seraphim don't see it that way.”

“I'm like an open book to you, aren't I? Transparent as the surface of a pond,” Rose grumbled.

“Well, I can see it in your face that you're upset. Not hard for me to figure out what's bothering you.” She smiled sympathetically. “Believe me, Rose, I feel it too. It doesn't really get any easier. There are just some seraphim you will never win over.”

“Or rather,” Zaveid said, “you don't want to win them over, because the circumstances required to change their minds would be dire.” He gestured up and down, indicating himself. “I didn't think too much of the Shepherds for the longest time. I didn't _let_ myself give a damn. You and Sorey changed that. However, if it weren't for Heldalf and Maotelus, the whole dire situation that we were in, I don't think I would have given either of you a _chance_ to change my mind in the first place. I think the same is true for a lot of older seraphim. The legacy of the Shepherd isn't _entirely_ positive for everyone, after all.”

Edna rolled her eyes and jabbed him with her parasol; “Are you done vomiting words all over our Shepherd, Grampveid?”

“Ouch, fine, I'll shut my yap.” Zaveid gingerly rubbed where she'd poked him and stepped aside.

Rose just shook her head and dusted herself off; “Well, if we're all assembled, I think we can leave now. We still have a way to go before it gets too dark to travel.”

In response to that, Edna, Inkitatus and Zaveid all (almost synchronized in their timing) went dormant into her. Mikleo and Lailah remained manifest. They gathered together, making sure they had everything in place, and then set off. As they walked, Mikleo kept up the conversation to keep them focused and because he liked talking with his Shepherd and Squire.

They walked for several hours before they came to a good place to stop and set up a small camp (there were no inns anywhere nearby) and so they did so. They had to dip into their travel rations, so Rose and Scout had a simple, bland meal. Then they curled up in their cloaks around the campfire, while Lailah stayed up to watch the fire and keep an eye out for trouble.

The next morning, as they started off, Rose sensed something was wrong. Scout was still very quiet and moody, but there was no sign of him still being in pain. He didn't ask Mikleo for any extra healing, nor did the water seraph make any offers.

She left him alone while they walked, waiting to see what was going on. The Squire remained silent and foul-tempered, scowling at the ground as he walked.

When they paused by a small creek to refill water canteens and have a quick lunch, his mood didn't improve at all, and she came to the conclusion that she was going to have to say something. What she didn't know was  _what_ to say.

Before they packed up to resume walking, she pulled Lailah aside; “Something's wrong with Scout. Do you know what it is? I think I need to talk to him, but I don't know what to say. Can you help me?”

The Prime Lord gave a helpless shrug; “Mikleo said something last night while the two of you were asleep. He's worried as well, but I have no idea what caused this. Scout seemed fine up until that hellion fight yesterday. It wasn't until afterward that he became moody. And now if you look, there's the beginnings of malevolence coming from him. He's really upset, but he won't open up to us. We can't let him stew on it, or it'll never get better. I'll help you however I can, as always, but I don't know what's going on.”

Once they were done and had set off again, they waited to see if Scout's mood improved. It didn't. This time Rose gave a silent command for her seraphim to return to her, to give her and Scout at least the illusion of privacy. Then, when they had a chance to pause, she decided to go ahead and try.

“Scout, something's bothering you. What's wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said unconvincingly.

“You really shouldn't lie to me. I can see that something is really bothering you. Lies only make for a rift between us. Also,” she added, hesitantly, “this is the first time I've ever seen you emit malevolence. What's bothering you, Scout? Come on, talk to me.”

He rounded on her, his face set into a furious glare; “Well, then it's a good thing I'm not the goddamned Shepherd, huh? If I'm malevolent enough that you don't want me as your Squire anymore, all you have to do is break the pact and I'll bugger off out of your hair.”

His outburst was so out of character and so over the top that she had no immediate answer. Why was he so angry? He had never gotten angry with her like this before, especially over teasing. He dished back immediately whenever he was teased; he had no problem with calling her “Ugly old hag” despite the fact that she was only a little over ten years older than him and clearly not an old spinster yet. And what exactly was causing him to emit malevolence in the first place? For being a former pickpocket, he had always been remarkably pure, but now he was emitting the first stirrings of malevolence. It was weak right now, unable to affect anything at all, but it was there, and it was something they couldn't ignore.

“What makes you think I want to be rid of you? I just don't like this heavy silence between us, where you seem furious with me and you won't talk about it. You need to tell me what's wrong.”

To her further bewilderment, his large, dark eyes abruptly filled with tears. “Just do the right thing and break the pact. Everyone throws me away sooner or later. It's your turn.”

“What's gotten into you, Scout? You're not worthless, but you're sure worrying me with how angry you are over something you won't talk about. And don't tell me that you're not, because I can see it. I'm the Shepherd, Scout. There are things I can see; you can't tell me they aren't there.”

He turned away abruptly, and by the way his shoulders and arms moved, he was probably wiping his eyes. It made her heart ache; how could he be suffering so much and she hadn't seen anything? How long had he been stewing on whatever was bothering him? He was tempestuous and tended to let his emotions out very quickly; what could have been haunting him enough that he thought she was going to discard him like a used-up food wrapper?

“You should throw me away,” he said miserably. “I'm worthless to you now.”

“No, you're not, and you're going to make me angry if you keep saying that. I rely on you, Scout. I'm so used to having you around that whenever you do find a seraph to become your Prime Lord and thus become a Shepherd, I'm really going to miss having you around.”

“I won't be a Shepherd. I _can't_ be a Shepherd. You don't get it at all, you dumb hag.” He was sobbing now, she could hear it in his voice. “I'm not even worth being your Squire anymore.”

She reached forward, putting a hand on him. He tensed up under her gentle touch, but he didn't push her away. “I don't think I ever said you  _have_ to become a Shepherd. If you don't want to, no one will force you. It's a choice, and is a very serious one. You're far from the first Squire to decide to not become a Shepherd. But you also don't need to rush this decision, either.”

“You don't understand at all. I _can't_ become a Shepherd. It has nothing to do with whether I want to or not.” Then, before she could counter his argument by asking him what he meant, he proceeded. “I'm corrupted. You've been adamant this whole time that a Shepherd mustn't hate, that doing so only leads to malevolence and corruption. Well, I'm corrupted by hate. I _hate her_.”

She paused a moment to give him a thorough look-over. The sense of malevolence was so faint that she wouldn't have noticed it at first if she wasn't looking for it. It was so faint that it was unable to corrupt even a glass of water yet, though it was there. He was almost radiating pain and anger right now, a natural human emotion that caused malevolence to begin to generate. Something had hurt him deep down in his heart, but it wasn't enough that he was at risk of producing malevolence at a level to corrupt anything. He was human; he wasn't corrupted yet, but something had made him think he was.

“Tell me what happened. Don't get mad at me for not understanding; help me to understand, because whatever it is, it's eating you alive.”

“It's that seraph. The one you purified and let go yesterday.” He turned around and looked at her with a defiant frown, but there was something in his gaze that, despite the expression of defiance, seemed to be pleading with her. “She destroyed my home, killed my best friend, hurt a lot of people and _you just let her go_. She doesn't even remember she did it. There's no justice for all the lives she ruined or ended. I wanted to kill her, Rose. I've never felt such hatred, or desire to kill, as I felt yesterday.” 

She started to realize what she was seeing. He was terrified of feelings that he didn't understand, things he'd been conditioned to believe were bad and would make him a bad person.

His face crumpled in pure misery at her silence. “I thought, when I threw away my old name to travel with you, when I threw away my old life to start a whole new one, that I'd learn to forgive and forget. I didn't let myself think about it, because I didn't want to feel this way. I wanted to believe seraphim are what you say they are. I want to believe that seraphim would never willingly hurt humans like that. But when I saw  _her_ , and heard her, and knew her for the bastard who destroyed Talys, it all came crashing back. I'm lying to myself if I say that I can ever forgive her for what she did. I hate her, Rose. I want her to die just as horribly as the people of Talys did. She deserves it!”

His words were dangerous, so she decided to deflect that part for a moment until she could think properly about it. “How long have you been stewing on this?”

“Ever since it happened,” he snapped. “I don't know how long it's been. I lived in a complete fog for a while. When you're trying to survive each day, because you don't know what else to do, you don't pay attention to the passing of time. What does that matter? I'm corrupted now, because now that I can't stop thinking about it, I can't stop hating because of it. Hate is the enemy of the Shepherd, the basis of Calamity. I'll just become the next Lord of Calamity, won't I? So you should throw me away. Dispose of me. Maybe even end my damned suffering.” He tugged on his collar to loosen it and threw his head back, exposing his throat symbolically.

She sighed, and then chuckled at the irony; “You're so overly dramatic, Scout. Relax, you're not corrupted. You're  _hurting_ right now because you're feeling things you thought you'd never feel again, but that doesn't mean you're corrupted. Your malevolence is too weak to do anything yet.”

“Yet,” he repeated bitterly. “Give it time, Rose. I can't keep lying to myself. I won't forgive her. I promise you, if I ever see her again, I _will_ try to kill her.”

Curiously, there was no conviction in his demeanor. He was weeping in bitter despair even as he said such hateful words. He didn't actually mean what he was saying, despite how hard he was trying to convince her that he did. He was a gentle soul at heart, but he had become so consumed by this very sudden anger (and misunderstanding) that he thought he was beyond redemption.

“No, you won't,” she said firmly, “because I won't let you. You're staying with me, Scout, until you learn some manners. Seraphim are to be revered, or at least left alone. If you start killing them, you will be on the path to become the next Lord of Calamity, and I will have no choice but to deal with you as one. However, I'm not going to let that happen. I'm going to teach you how to get over that, so that you can live a life free of such anxiety.”

“You don't even know what you're talking about, you dumb hag,” he said bitterly, but she was sure that she detected a sense of relief in him too. Scout was still young, barely sixteen at this point, and had had a very hard life. He needed a steady, positive influence to counter the negativity and uncertainty he'd grown up with. He looked to her as a mentor.

On impulse, she put her arms around him and pulled him close. He went rigid with surprise at the sudden embrace, especially since they had never really had much in the way of physical intimacy between them. But she could tell that he needed a hug, to be encouraged to purge himself of his misery, and so she insisted. It was a matter of mere seconds that he resisted, before he relented and accepted. He probably hadn't been hugged like this, in affectionate comforting (rather than enthusiastically in greeting) in many years, if ever.

“You're not a bad person. You're young and confused and you've been through something traumatic. You keep saying that I don't understand, but I think that I do understand better than you'll ever realize. I can help you. Just have some faith in me for a little while, and you'll see what I mean.”

He whimpered at that, and the next thing she knew, he was sobbing, noisily, against her shoulder. She could feel her heart breaking right there in her chest as he collapsed against her. How long he must have been carrying this trauma, trying to pretend it wasn't there, and then to have it all ripped loose by a chance encounter with a hellion, and for him to think that all his aspirations were now gone because of that.

She had suspected that he was hiding some sort of ugly past; she was certain it was why he had been so eager to throw away his entire past – including his name – when he became her Squire. What she hadn't known, of course, was the intricate details, because they'd agreed to not talk about any of it. He had abandoned all of that for a reason, after all.

_'It makes me wonder if he will end up hating me,'_ Inkitatus said privately to her.  _'I have killed, sometimes indiscriminately. I was a hellion for a long time; I do not remember a lot, but I remember killing, and I do not feel shame for it because it was not_ my _will. Am I wrong for this?'_

Lailah gently shushed him so that Rose could focus on her heartbroken young Squire, but it did give the Shepherd a moment to consider that this was a very complicated thing. Then again, maybe where she couldn't help him, Inkitatus could. Unlike her other seraphim, he had intimate and recent knowledge of what hellionization was like. If anyone could possibly change Scout's mindset about a seraph during hellionization, the horse was the most logical candidate for that, since he was the only one of them who had ever fully hellionized.

However, that was not an immediate concern. She needed to get her Squire calmed down (though by now his sobbing had quieted down, and he wasn't shaking as much) before she considered steps to rehabilitate him.

At length, he ended the impromptu and awkward embrace by stepping back and pushing her away. His face was tear-stained and splotchy from his outpouring of grief, and his eyes were painfully bloodshot.

“Feel any better?”

“Not really,” he said glumly. “I mean, yeah, I guess I sorta do, but no, I really kinda don't. Cryin' don't fix nothin'.”

“Come on, let's go find somewhere that we can sit down, out of this blazing sun, and have a heart to heart.”

“I'd really rather not,” he protested weakly.

She smiled; “I don't really care what you'd 'rather or rather not' do, young man. I told you, you're staying with me, and you're going to get through this with my help. Now come along.”

He grumbled, but obeyed her commands.

_'What are we going to do, Rose?'_ Mikleo inquired hesitantly.  _'You'd better think of something fast, because you know how tempestuous he is.'_

_'Actually, I have an idea,'_ Zaveid said,  _'but it's not very nice. Gonna need some permission before I do anything, because it isn't going to be pretty, but it may knock some sense into him.'_

Rose cringed internally at the conversation going on. She was used to her seraphim talking inside her head now, but that didn't mean she actually  _liked_ it. She tried to minimize the phenomenon, but right now, they had to do it because she didn't want them manifest.

_'What do you intend to do?'_ That was Lailah.

_'I'll scare the living bejeebus out of him and reduce him to primal instinct.'_

_'Our goal is to_ reduce _his malevolence, not force him to transform into a hellion!'_ Edna admonished.  _'We can't cure the problem if we make it worse just to purify it. He has to learn to let go of his hatred or else this cycle won't stop. Stupid Grampveid, thinking muscle solves everything!'_

_'He's nowhere near malevolent enough to do that. And trust me, that boy has no idea what he's dealing with here. He thinks I'm a harmless old man, doesn't he? He has no idea that I'm way more dangerous than Rose ever was. I killed for personal agenda. I can scare him within an inch of his life.'_

_'No one is doubting that you_ can  _do that,'_ Mikleo retorted,  _'what we're debating is if you_ should _. Or rather, you're debating with us, because none of us thinks it's a good idea to scare him.'_

Rose grimaced, wishing they’d stop. They had a point, in all ways. Scout needed to know that his malevolence wouldn’t be tolerated, but they couldn’t just scare the hell out of him to drive that home. He was in a precarious position, though they needed to not baby him and make him think he was more tainted than he was. He wasn’t a huge danger to anyone yet, but they had to nip this one in the bud now.

The promised “heart to heart” didn’t happen, unfortunately. There really wasn’t anywhere to sit and have such a discussion, and Rose was still at a bit of a loss as to what to do right now.

While the seraphim talked among themselves (noticeably, Inky stayed out of the discussion except when addressed) Rose and Scout kept walking briskly. Scout was completely ignorant of was being said inside Rose’s head, though she suspected he had an idea that it was happening (he had to know that the seraphim were aware of what was going on. Rose wasn’t capable of hiding things from Lailah in particular, after all) and this kept up for quite a while.

Out of nowhere, Mikleo made a suggestion that stuck with Rose;  _‘Maybe she should break his squire pact, put him through a test to earn it back, and then forge a new squire pact when he’s passed that test. She can give him a new true name to symbolize a rebirth, of a sort. That might help cement that he has remade himself and give him something to remind him of this. I can think of some new names she could give him. I mean, that one he has right now? That’s a real mouthful, Lailah.’_

‘ _Rose asked!’_ Lailah said, defending the overly-complicated current true name that Scout carried but never used because neither human could pronounce it very well.

The fact that Lailah had not shot down Mikleo’s whole idea altogether seemed to mean that she was, at the very least, not completely opposed to the idea. It was something to consider.

The problem was, they still needed to purify the malevolence Scout was dealing with, but Rose wasn’t as adept with purifying small amounts as she was large ones. She didn’t want to traumatize her young squire, but she also didn’t want leave it to itself. What to do about  _that_ ?

As far as she knew it, the best way for Scout to cure his own noticeable malevolence was for him to come to terms with what had caused him to generate it in the first place: namely, the hatred he felt toward that seraph. He had to let go of that hate and learn to accept that which he couldn’t change. If he could do that, the malevolence should retreat. It wouldn’t just be magically purified, per se, as humans were always continually creating it, but it would stop generating in corruptible amounts. Without something to keep generating it, significant malevolence generally didn’t hang around for long, as long as it wasn’t very strong. It was only when it was amplified by other residual malevolence, or a hellion’s corrupted domain, that malevolence persisted even after its creator stopped generating it.

The debate raging inside her head continued on until they came to a place to camp for the night. It wasn’t quite sundown yet, but it was a good place to set up, so they did so. Upon emerging from their vessel, all five seraphim proceeded to act as though nothing was wrong (other than Inky complaining once about his hooves still being sore; he stopped when Mikleo scolded him for not asking for healing) which just made Scout all the more confused and sullen.

However, embarrassed as he was, the Squire kept his mouth shut and said nothing.

At sunset, Inky wandered away to conduct his evening song (he actually preferred to do it alone if he could because the ritual was a deeply private one), but they could hear him on the breeze, so no one worried. Scout kept to himself, noticeably keeping a distance from Rose and the seraphim, until finally Zaveid made a none-too-gentle teasing joke about hygiene. Then Scout made a very biting comment in response (Rose actually didn’t hear his precise words, mostly because she was plunging her canteens into the stream at the time that it happened, but she heard the explosive way he said it, and the absolute silence afterward) and everything became awkward.

“Okay,” Zaveid said slowly, “so, tell me, what exactly did I do to you to make you so mad at me? You have been in a foul temper all day long, and none of us deserve the shit you’re giving us. What gives, kid?”

“You’re treating me like a child.”

“Because you _are_ a child.”

“Rose,” Mikleo said urgently to his Shepherd, “we need to do something. We can’t ignore this. I think you need to do something right now. The longer you wait, the worse it’s going to get.”

“I’m not ignoring it, I’m trying to figure out what to do. Breaking his pact seems like a steep price to pay for a lesson in humility, and it may backfire. You know Scout has nothing left except us, since he gave everything else up. If we take away his identity as my Squire, what will he have left? I’m a little afraid of breaking his spirit and making everything worse.”

“Then he’s not really worthy of being your Squire, if something like that can break him. Don’t start coddling him now.” The seraph was genuinely distressed, she could tell. It was probably nerve-wracking for him to be around a source of malevolence like this.

That also made her realize why he had suggested the whole idea of breaking the pact with Scout in the first place. Mikleo was worried about the possibility of hellionization, because he had spent the past several years traveling with a Shepherd, and thus learning just how hard his (and Sorey’s) dream of human and seraphic integration was going to be. And now, with Scout producing malevolence (yes it was a very small amount right now, but that’s how it always started; it began small and got bigger) and having a Squire pact, it put all five seraphim in direct contact with a malevolent human.

With a sigh of resignation, she steeled herself for some unpleasantness.

“Okay, seraphic friends, I need you all to go dormant for a while,” she announced broadly. “Inky, that means you, too. I know you can hear me.”

Her seraphim all obeyed her command immediately. Even Inky, who had been far enough away that she couldn’t see him in the evening gloaming, but was close enough to hear her call, came trotting back to her and then went dormant into her when he was close enough. (As per usual, his hooves made no sound on the ground, so she only knew he was close when he nickered at her as he came within a few meters of her, before dissolving into dormancy.)

Scout looked at her with rightful trepidation as she took a seat at the campfire and gestured for him to sit across the fire from her. “What’s going on?”

“We need to talk,” she said simply, as cheerfully as she could. “Sit down.”

She waited patiently until he had obeyed. He had to have an idea of what was about to happen, because he looked like he was primed to catapult to his feet. He fidgeted nervously while she looked him over.

“As we discussed earlier, your rather sudden emotional upheaval yesterday has triggered the unfortunate generation of malevolence. This is causing a great deal of strain, as my seraphim are collectively uneasy being around you at this time, and about the effect it will have on them and on me. Because of our pact, Scout, you are dangerous to them in your current state. You currently wield power over them, and you are generating malevolence. Therefore, in order to protect them, I have no choice but to break our pact, to take that power away from you.”

She flinched at the look of sadness and resignation on his face, and could only imagine how much it must hurt right now. He was expecting to be discarded like yesterday’s trash, but that didn’t make it any less painful. Though he was trying to hide it, he was still visibly heartbroken.

“However,” she added as quickly as she could, “before you go getting the wrong idea, you’re not leaving me. I’m still your guardian, you know. You’re staying with me, as I told you earlier, and you’re going to _earn back_ your squireship. Do you understand? I’m breaking our pact to protect my seraphim from your malevolence; when you conquer that malevolence, we will establish a new squire pact and you will receive a new squire name. At that time, I will consider you a Shepherd-in-training for real. So stop moping like you’re being abandoned. I’m going to work your young ass off.”

He looked away for a fairly long time, and she let silence lapse between them. He needed to come to terms with things on his own; she just wanted it to be absolutely clear that he was not being abandoned, and that she was going to be there for him, to help him through things.

“If I’m not your squire anymore, what happens when we encounter a hellion?”

“You’ll have to either hide, or run from the fight. You can’t fight a hellion without seraphic power, and I won’t let you get mixed up in it. However, I don’t expect it will take too long for you to earn your squireship back. You just need to have some faith in yourself and do your best.”

“What do I have to do?”

“You have to purify your own malevolence.”

“How do I do that?”

This was the hard part; she knew she was going to encounter a great deal of resistance from him. He didn’t want to do this. He wanted to hang onto his rage and hatred, but he  _had_ to learn to let go, or he’d be miserable his entire adult life.

“You have to forgive that seraph for what she did to your home. At the very least, you have to give up your hatred of her, and your rage at what she did. If you can’t forgive fully right away, that’s okay, but you need to stop hating her and start empathizing with what she’s been through. You absolutely must give up any ideas of revenge against her.”

“Well,” he said coldly, “that’s just not going to happen. What she did is unforgivable. So I guess we’re at an impasse.”

“You’re determined to cling to hate?” She sighed. “Have you learned nothing at all in all the time you’ve been with me? Hatred will fester, and with your power, eventually, you will become a mindless hellion. Or worse.”

She didn’t have to say what the “or worse” was, of course. Both of them danced carefully around the fact that with his power and strength, Scout could become a Lord of Calamity in a few years if he continued down this dark path. Part of the reason she had taken him on, when his morals were questionable, was to prevent him from falling to that horrible influence. She was determined to not allow anyone to become a Lord of Calamity on her watch, but even more so, she couldn’t let someone she had come to care for this much succumb to such a terrible fate.

Scout pulled a face. “I don’t care, Rose. That seraph destroyed the only home I’ve ever had. She destroyed the only chance I ever had at a stable future.”

“So you have said. Why don’t you tell me more about it? I need to know more about you in order to understand your motives. I want to help you, Scout. Tell me what happened to you, to make you hate a seraph so much that you’d throw everything away now to cling to your hatred.”

He relented; “Talys isn’t my hometown; I don’t have one. I’ve been alone and unwanted all my life, but a few years ago, I got caught in the market in Talys, and for some reason, this old geezer took me in instead of handing me over to the local constable. He started to teach me his trade. He was a fisherman, and he taught me how to repair nets, how to cast the nets, and even how to sail a fishing craft. He and his son Zeke were so nice to me, that for a little while, I felt like I finally had a family. The old man was gonna make me his apprentice. I was gonna have an honest life, Rose. No more stealing and stuff. I even got to meet the town guardian, Lilybell. That’s what we called her. Now, Zeke and the old man couldn’t actually  _see her_ , but they paid homage to her all the same. But me? I could see her, plain as day. I won’t describe her, since you saw her yesterday, except she looked a great deal more disheveled yesterday than I remember of her.”

Disheveled? She did her best to hide a smile. In the past couple of years that he had been with her and her seraphim, Scout’s entire mannerisms had slowly changed. He now spoke less like an uneducated hick and more like an intelligent adult. (She knew which of her seraphim was most deserving of credit there, too.) Right now, he was waffling between talking like he used to, and speaking with the flowery, sophisticated air of an educated adult.

He glowered suspiciously at her when he saw her amused reaction. “I’m glad you find my history funny, Rose. It’s so nice to entertain you with my pain.”

“I’m not laughing at your pain, Scout. You are so wrapped up in your misery that you think everything is against you. Relax a little, my friend. Besides, Inky cracked a bad joke in my head.”

‘ _I did what?’_ Fortunately, Inky said it privately to her, so that Scout couldn’t hear it.

‘ _Work with me here, horseface!’_

“What did he say?” Scout squinted at her, not convinced in the slightest.

“He said something about seraphim not being dishes or shelves. Because you said disheveled. Like I said, a bad joke. Now, please, continue.”

He glared at her even harder for a moment before looking away. “Not much to say. I’m not sure what exactly happened. I just know there was a massive earthquake and tidal waves and such, and in all the chaos, I saw Lilybell change into a strange monster, and then she started smashing houses. Half the village was killed by the collapsing buildings and there were more than a few who were carried away by the tidal waves. Zeke and the old man were among those killed by her rampage. My chance at an honest life was destroyed by an angry village guardian gone berserk.”

Rose was inundated, for just a moment, with a wave of negative emotions from Inky. She felt grief, shame and dread break over her like a wave. Scout’s recollection of the horror of Lily’s hellionization, and the damage she’d caused, had triggered in the horse the traumatizing memories he could still dredge up from his own hellionization. For a moment, she felt rather than saw flashes of rage and pain, wind and fire, and she could see vague figures keeling over below. Inkitatus, as the Singing Phantom, had done tremendous damage over his tenure as a hellion, and he remembered some of it in enough detail that Scout’s condemnation could be construed as personal against him. Incredibly, it all happened in a split second, too. In the span of time it took to blink her eyes, she experienced all of that.

Then, almost immediately after that, Rose heard Lailah gently admonish the seraph;  _‘Please, Inky, get a hold of yourself. I know this is terrible for you, but don’t make it worse.’_

Oblivious to all this, Scout resumed talking; “I don’t really remember much after all that, because I was pretty badly hurt too. Someone saved me, I guess, I don’t know why, and I was nursed back to health, and then pushed right back out onto the streets. I was alone again, and confused. I eventually found out that Talys was reported as razed by an earthquake. No one talked about a monster destroying it. When I as a survivor spoke of a monster, they dismissed me as delusional from what I’d gone through. Since then, I’ve been trying to forget it ever happened, and I was half convinced I’d hallucinated the whole thing. At least, until I met you and learned about seraphim and hellions and such.”

“How long ago was this? A year before I met you, or several years?”

“How the hell should I know, you dumb hag? I told you, I don’t remember much about anything; I lost track of the passage of time. I was just trying to survive. Why do you care?”

She frowned at him; “I’m trying to figure out why Lily hellionized. That kind of abrupt transformation sounds an awful lot to me like she was corrupted by a powerful domain. I don’t think she became corrupted slowly; I think she was affected by an outside corruption. If there’s a hellion, or even a dragon, out there strong enough to do that sort of thing, I need to know about it. Unless I’ve already taken care of it, of course. I’m going to assume it didn’t happen back during Heldalf’s reign?”

Scout just shook his head; “I can’t answer that. Well, it’s been a fair few years, I’m sure. I mean, I’ve been with you for like two years now, right? I’m crap at telling time, but there was probably a couple of years worth of time between all that and when I ended up in Marlind. Maybe more. I don’t really know how old I was when it all happened, I told you that I don’t remember much.”

That didn’t really help. She doubted that Heldalf had been directly responsible for Lily’s hellionization (like he was for Inkitatus) but she couldn’t rule it out completely. But she had a feeling that the event Scout was telling her about had happened less than seven years ago.

“I don’t know why you care,” Scout said in annoyance. “It was a long time ago, and it doesn’t matter what caused her to hellionize. The point is, she destroyed the only place I could call home, leaving me with nothing all over again. I can’t just forgive her. I know you think I should, but this is personal.”

“Well,” she replied as calmly as she could, “you’re wrong and you know it, but you won’t admit it. You’ll learn in time. But until then, in order to protect my seraphic partners, I must break your contract. You will earn it back once you see the error of your ways. Until then, we’ll just have to schlep you along and you’ll have to earn your keep in other ways.”

‘ _Go ahead, Lailah,_ ’ she added silently to her seraphim. _‘I think it’s best if you do this.’_

Her Prime Lord manifested at that, and without speaking a word, severed the connection between Shepherd and Squire. Her expression was utterly calm and poised as she did her thing. There was a sense of an oppressive weight descending upon Rose’s shoulders once it was over, one she couldn’t quite explain. Scout just looked deflated, sad. He wouldn’t look her in the eye and she didn’t feel like making a fuss. She was suddenly very, very tired.

Things got more awkward when her seraphim began emerging once the coast was clear. Scout just turned away from them, set up a place on the ground for himself, and curled up in solitude. He didn’t even grunt a response when she called over a good night to him.

Inky, likewise, was utterly silent and unresponsive. It made Rose actually a little annoyed because now she felt like she’d done something wrong, with her (former) Squire and her newest seraphic partner both sulking and sullen. Although her seraphim assured her that she’d done the right thing (which she of course knew; it was really the  _only_ thing she could have done in this situation) she just got more and more annoyed, and ended up going to bed actually angry.

Her dreams were disturbing because they laid bare her insecurities again, as she relived her early days of being a Shepherd and the moment when her anger and despair had nearly brought about her own malevolence. It had been a frustrating hellion-hunt gone wrong, and she had lost her temper. She remembered Lailah telling her that she was going to become malevolent if she didn’t calm down, and the look of fear in the eyes of her Prime Lord at the prospect of dealing with a falling Shepherd. In her dream, she saw Mikleo’s violet eyes change to malignant red, Inky became a scaled kelpie, Zaveid became mindless fighting machine, and Edna fled, threatening to break her pact because she’d never allow herself to be near a dragon again.

She could  _almost_ hear Sorey’s voice saying “Rose, you’re doing fine, stop worrying so much” to which she just wanted to yell “Shut up, lazybones, you’re the one sleeping this whole time while I’m out busting my ass doing  _your_ job! Stop judging me!”

She woke up in the predawn gloaming, the campfire nearby crackling, with a sense that something was wrong. Lailah was sitting beside the fire, and that horse-shaped silhouette in the shadows near her meant that Inky was manifest too. The other seraphim were apparently asleep, dormant within their Shepherd. She took a moment to check, and found both Edna and Zaveid coiled within her, asleep, but not Mikleo.

“You’re thinking way too much about this, Inky,” she heard Lailah said calmly. “Scout is traumatized, but he doesn’t hate you.”

‘ _He judges Lilybell for what he saw her do. I have done far worse than he described. If he hates her for what she did while hellionized, then he should hate me even more.’_

“Please, stop worrying so much about this. He’s hurting a lot right now because of what has happened and what we had to do to him. Give him time, he’ll come around. Come, why don’t you rest for a little bit?” She patted her lap as though she were inviting a cat to leap into it.

To Rose’s surprise, Inky responded by folding down and laying beside the Prime Lord, resting his great head in her lap. It was a tender and affectionate gesture on both sides, and it made Rose realize that Inky had developed a closer relationship with Lailah than she’d noticed before.

It was encouraging, especially because it meant that Rose didn’t have to keep a close eye on him. Lailah was going to do that for her (though to be fair, that was part of the job of the Prime Lord, to monitor the Sub Lords and keep them in line) and it would enable Rose to focus on her errant former Squire, rehabilitating him and reinstating his Squireship.

Suddenly, inexplicably, she was overcome with the fear that Scout had fled during the night, that she would have to chase him across the continent to find him again, and she threw back her blanket and sat up, looking around. There, several meters away, huddled under his blanket and watched over silently by the silver-silhouetted figure of a familiar water seraph, was her former Squire.

“Rose?” Lailah called over softly. “Is something wrong?”

“Nightmares. I guess I dreamt that Scout ran away in the night. I know I should trust you to tell me if something’s wrong, but... I just...When I’m asleep, what I dream about is often not something I would normally do.”

“I understand completely,” her Prime Lord said gently. “You’ve been through a lot, and sometimes we dream about things we’d never do. It’s the nature of dreams, really. Do you need anything before you go back to sleep?”

“Just...” She looked over at Scout’s motionless form, hesitant. Should she ask? Was that showing a lack of trust in her Prime Lord if she asked?

Lailah, ever empathetic, understood immediately and reassured her; “He is as fine as he can be. Mikleo has been worrying about him too, since we no longer have a connection to him, so I asked him to watch over him.”

“Thank you, Lailah. Sometimes, I get the distinct impression that I don’t really deserve you, and that I don’t appreciate enough all that you do. But I really am grateful that you’re here. So, thank you.”

“Please go back to sleep, Rose. You’re not yourself when you’re this wound up. I’d sing you a lullaby, but we know how that works for you. Shall I ask Inky to sing for you?”

‘ _Rock-a-by, baby, in the treetops. I don’t quite remember the rest of the words,’_ Inkitatus sang in a flat deadpan.

“Thank you, both of you,” she said in response as she laid back down and curled up, settling her blanket just under her chin and nestling into her pillow.

She dreamed of Sorey again. It was infuriating, really. It wasn’t like she was  _trying_ to forget him, but she’d promised herself not to talk about him, because she didn’t ever want to compare herself to him

When she woke up a few hours later, the camp was quiet. Edna was on watch duty, and Rose awoke when she felt one of her seraphim emerge from her to manifest. It was Mikleo.

“How is Scout?” She asked, figuring (correctly, as it happened) that he was manifesting to check on the boy.

“I was just going to go look. He was very restless overnight. He has been ignoring me but I know he can still see and hear me. His resonance is still strong enough that he knows when I’m there. I want him to know that I’m here for him, even if he feels abandoned. I just wish he’d stop ignoring me completely. But maybe he’ll come around today.”

She sighed. “I know he’s traumatized, and I can’t help but think that we made it all worse by taking away the one thing he had left. But really, what could I do?”

“You did the right thing, even if it feels like the wrong thing. Believe me, I’ve been kicking myself for pushing you so hard to sever the pact after seeing what it did to him. I know it’s hard. But... I still feel safer now knowing that his malevolence is contained and won’t infect us directly, though I do worry still about you.”

“Well, you don’t need to worry about me,” she said with a bright smile, swallowing her insecurities and an unexpected to ask him if he still dreamed about Sorey. She’d promised herself she’d never talk about him, and Mikleo was probably the last person she’d break that promise with. “I have all of you to keep me company and to keep me focused. Thank you, though. I know I don’t appreciate you seraphim as much as I should.”

“How about some gratitude for the little lady over here missing out on her beauty sleep while Meebo was getting his?” Edna said tartly.

* * *

The worst part for Scout was the complete silence. He’d never really realized just how much sound and feeling he’d perceived from the seraphim, until it was all gone. And he didn’t realize how much comfort he took in hearing and feeling them around, until it was gone. Suddenly, they could appear and disappear beside him without him hearing them manifest. Worse, his resonance was apparently not as good as he thought it was, because he could only barely see the seraphim in certain lights, and he often couldn’t hear them unless they were talking directly to him. Mikleo’s voice was muffled when he spoke, Edna’s voice had a heaviness to it that he’d never heard before, Lailah’s sounded like a crackling fire sometimes, and Zaveid’s was hollow. Inky was completely silent; Scout didn’t hear him speak again for a long while. He began to miss the stallion’s singing, the ditties and ballads, and especially the evening nocturnes.

He felt so utterly alone sometimes, it was breathtaking. Even knowing that the seraphim all owed absolute loyalty to Rose over him due to their pacts, it still hurt to feel so completely left out.

The second worst part was the feeling that he’d lost friends over it. Mikleo was of course a firm supporter, and once the terrible first couple of days were past, Scout began to open up to him again. But he found Zaveid to be insufferably patronizing now (without the connection to Rose to know that it was all affectionate, he found the old seraph’s actions to be annoying as hell); Edna was cold and standoffish, snide and criticizing when she spoke; and Inkitatus was utterly distant, refusing to speak to or around him, and often going dormant into Rose to avoid contact with Scout. Lailah tried sometimes to speak with him, but there was a great deal of awkwardness between them right now, and after a while she backed off and let Mikleo do it. Scout wasn’t sure if she made the decision herself or if she was advised by someone else to leave well enough alone. He found himself missing her all the same.

However, it was Inky whose rejection Scout felt the sharpest, because being ignored was worse than being looked down upon. He had really liked Inky before; it hurt acutely to feel as though he was beneath the horse’s notice. He wasn’t sure he understood why Inky was so mad at him.

He was ashamed of how much it hurt, of how often he ended up crying himself to sleep because he was so miserable and lonely. (He did so silently, refusing to sob audibly, because his pride wouldn’t let him show that much weakness in front of Rose, but he still ended up weeping himself into exhaustion more often than not.) It was out of that loneliness that he surrendered to Mikleo’s constant presence and started opening up. The water seraph made it clear that he just wanted to continue being friends, and so Scout found himself drawn in. He sometimes had trouble hearing Mikleo speak, but he found comfort in the seraph’s presence all the same. It staved off the engulfing loneliness and the encroaching sense of uselessness.

He woke up in the middle of the night one night to overhear the changing of the watch. (The seraphim took turns watching the camp for their human companions, since they could sleep during the day if they needed to, and here in Glaivend Basin, there were no inns to stay at, so it wasn’t entirely safe.) Zaveid was apparently about to go sleep and Mikleo was taking over. That or maybe it was the other way around. He just knew that he heard the wind and water seraphim talking.

“I don’t mean this as a slight against Rose at all,” Mikleo was saying, “but right now, I wish Sorey was here. Not even as a Shepherd, per se, just as a human. Someone for him to talk to, that maybe he’ll listen to. I can’t help but think that Sorey would actually get through to him. I feel like he’s still not quite listening to me because I’m a seraph and how could I know?”

“Is that really the only reason you miss him?”

“Okay, old man, go to bed before I slap you.”

“Haa!” Zaveid’s laughter was almost lost by the rustling of a breeze.

Then there was a long silence, and Scout was about to roll over look to see if Mikleo was alone now, or if the older seraph had remained manifest, when suddenly he heard Mikleo’s voice again.

“Is it just me, Zaveid, or are Inky’s songs getting sadder?”

“Hmm?”

“Those nocturnes he sings. Is it just me, or are they sadder now? I mean, they’ve always been sad, but now when he sings, it really makes my chest tight with sympathy. Do you think he’s doing it deliberately?”

A brief pause before Zaveid answered; “You do know that he sings those songs in memory of someone he loved, right? I mean, he does sing for the fun of it, but those nocturnes in particular are a memorial to someone. They’re supposed to be sad. It’s practically a funerary dirge.”

“I know why he does it,” Mikleo snapped. “Even if he hadn’t outright said why he does it, the lyrics make it pretty clear what he’s doing. I’m talking about the way he’s singing. It sounds to me like lately he’s been putting more emotion into the song, and it’s heartbreaking.”

“Well, he probably is because for the first time in a very long time he’s allowed to feel those emotions and thus express said emotions. Just a hunch, mind you, since I haven’t actually asked him.”

“What do you mean? Are you saying he’s mourning for Rhiannon’s family? Those are the only people I can think of that he’s not had time to mourn for because he was hellionized for so long.”

“Nope,” Zaveid said, with a grunt that sounded like he was standing up as he spoke. “He’s clearly mourning a female. It’s right there in the lyrics if you listen. But I’m not going to speculate much. You should just ask him yourself if you’re curious. Anyway, goodnight Mikky-boy.”

Scout waited an agonizing few minutes until he was certain that Zaveid had withdrawn, and then he rolled over, pretending to do so in his sleep, and peered through his eyelashes.

Mikleo appeared to be alone. After a few moments, Scout took a chance and sat up, pushing his blanket off. The seraph looked over at him curiously.

“Trouble sleeping?”

“A little. Um... Can you... can you tell me about Shepherd Sorey?”

Mikleo cocked an eyebrow in surprise. “You’ve been awake for a while, haven’t you?” There was no accusation in his voice, but Scout panicked a little inside all the same.

“I...I heard the name as I was waking up. I can’t always hear you very clearly anymore. I’ve wanted to ask about Shepherd Sorey for a long time, but Rose always said not to. I don’t... I guess I’ll stop asking. I’m sorry, I just wanted to know about him.”

“I’m not prepared to talk about Sorey right now. However, I will tell you about him at a later time. Give me a few days to gather my thoughts, and then we can talk about him. All right?”

Not having much of a choice, Scout agreed and obediently laid back down, trying to go back to sleep.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the long delay between chapters. It's been a difficult and busy year, and this chapter stalled at the very end. I will work my best on the finale but I can't give an ETA at this time.

**Author's Note:**

> Extra special thanks to @katamarii for the help with this fic! Without her, this fic would never have happened and I certainly would never have been able to come up with the True Names of my two OC seraphim.


End file.
